A Survey of Community Pharmacists about Work-Related Issues, How they Solve them, and who they Consult with to Solve them: Comparison of Results from the Hokkaido Area vs. a Nationwide Survey

We surveyed the drug information retrieval practices among community pharmacists in more rural Hokkaido and in entire Japan in order to explore local characteristics of work-related issues, how community pharmacists access information to address such issues, and with whom they consult to solve them. Based on the findings, we propose a strategy for improvements in similar support systems. The percentage of respondents who had experience with home care services was significantly lower in the Hokkaido group (56.0% of 207) than in the nationwide group (70.0% of 250), as was the percentage of respondents who consulted the pharmacist association and branch board (13.0% and 20.4%, respectively). The Hokkaido group also made significantly less use of websites such as d.m3.com and e.CareNet.com. The results of this survey thus indicate that the drug information retrieval in the Hokkaido group had a low implementation rate of home care services. In addition, there were low levels of utilization of the local pharmacist association, and low utilization of the websites d.m3.com and e.CareNet.com. To enhance the Hokkaido community-based integrated care system (and ones like it), we propose that it is necessary to: 1) support activities of local pharmacist associations, and 2) promote proactive implementation of drug information retrieval through education.