Vol.65 No.4 July 2017
Activity of the pharmacists with expertise in infection control in small- to medium-scale hospitals
Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Niigata University of Pharmacy and Applied Life Sciences, 265-1 Higashijima, Akiha-ku, Niigata, Japan
Abstract
The number of small- to medium-scale hospitals with less than 200 beds accounts for approximately 70% of all hospitals in Japan. These hospitals do not always employ on-staff healthcare professionals with expertise in infection control. Nevertheless, infection control guidelines issued by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare recommend that these smaller hospitals implement the same infection control measures required for larger-scale hospitals. In such situations, pharmacists can play an important role, as they are engaged in a wide variety of practices related to infection control, such as (1) recording antimicrobial consumption, (2) implementing therapeutic drug monitoring, (3) constructing antibiograms based on bacteriological test results, (4) implementing antimicrobial stewardship rounds, and (5) managing hospital outbreaks. This article presents an overview of previous studies of these practices, discusses specific cases experienced by the author, and suggests how pharmacists with expertise in infection control practice can contribute to communities.
Key word
infectious disease chemotherapy pharmacist, infection control practitioner
Received
December 1, 2016
Accepted
February 7, 2017
Jpn. J. Chemother. 65 (4): 552-557, 2017
