Third-party Evaluation Program for Primary Care Facilities: Situation in Other Countries and Suggestions for Our Country / 日本プライマリ・ケア連合学会誌

In Japan, improving the quality of primary care is an urgent issue; however, there is currently no specialized third-party evaluation program for primary care facilities. In this article, prior to the development of Japan's third-party evaluation program for primary care, we examined the systems and standards for the evaluation of primary care facilities in other countries. Based on the comparison of standards for the evaluation of primary care facilities by third-party evaluation agencies in four countries with Japanese hospital evaluation standards, the standards for collecting and utilizing quality data need to be strengthened from the viewpoint of patients, and areas, such as preventive medicine and home care, need to be covered when developing evaluation standards for primary care facilities in Japan. Moreover, building the structure of the standards with primary care as the main framework will strengthen the function of primary care facilities through continuous quality improvement.

Japanese Representation in High-impact International Primary Care Journals / 日本プライマリ・ケア連合学会誌

<p><b>Introduction: </b>There are no studies on how much primary care research from Japan has spread internationally. In this study, we aimed to investigate Japan's contribution to high-impact international primary care journals.</p><p><b>Methods: </b>We used the PubMed database and reviewed abstracts to examine the frequency of articles reporting clinical research or systematic reviews originating from Japan that were published in 5 high-impact international primary care journals from January 2011 to June 2016. We calculated the proportion of articles from Japan in the selected journals by year and journal.</p><p><b>Results: </b>Of the total articles (2,602), the proportion of Japanese articles in 5 high-impact international primary care journals was 0.15% (4 articles).</p><p><b>Conclusion: </b>Currently, Japan's contribution to high-impact international primary care journals is very small. In Japan, the development of research infrastructure, the education of researchers, and networks for research collaboration may be needed for international dissemination of primary care research.</p>

Quality assessment in primary care-focusing on patient experience / 日本プライマリ・ケア連合学会誌

Quality assessment in primary care is increasingly important, and quality indicators of primary care principles and primary care physicians' tasks are available for policy making and quality improvement in other countries. Patient centeredness is an especially important concept for evaluation of primary care principles, so patient experience surveys using quality assessment tools have been conducted in Europe and the US. On the other hand, similar effective approaches are lacking in Japan. Previous studies have indicated that important primary care principles in Japan are accessibility, comprehensiveness, coordination, longitudinal continuity, interpersonal continuity, community oriented care, and family oriented care. Quality assessment and assurance from multiple aspects should be promoted in the future to improve the quality of primary care in Japan.