The Effect of Clinical Research by Community Pharmacists on the Medical Field -The Perspective of Scientists in the Community Can Improve a Patient's Circumstances

Abstract

Our pharmacy, with a sterile dispensary, is a support center for home-care dispensing; we are actively participating in a regional collaboration in combination with medical treatment, nursing, and social care. We have supported about 1000 home care patients so far: most of these have been elderly people living at home, but roughly two dozen were pediatric patients. Although the primary diseases of the children varied, they shared in common both a high dependence on medicine, and great difficulty in moving them. With our pediatric patients, a caregiver had to be in constant attendance because the child's medical care was intermittent. In addition, at the pharmacy, due to the volume of medication for these pediatric patients, caregivers have had to wait a long time for prescription fulfillment, and often receive so much medicine they need a cart to carry it home. Through providing pharmacist-led home guidance on medicines, we are able to offer some support in the pharmacotherapy of children with extreme symptoms who remain under the supervision of a doctor from an advanced medical institution, even after returning home. Through my experience visiting both elderly people and children under home care, I have keenly realized the importance of a community pharmacist's research in improving pediatric formulation and home medical care systems. We must aim to reduce the burden of medication management for both patients and caregivers, and to improve a patient's "comprehensive quality of life, including (his or her) family".