ABSTRACT
<p><b>Introduction: </b>To determine the requirement (s) that enables the elderly living on an isolated island to continue living on their familiar island. </p><p><b>Methods: </b>The annual reports on the internal migration in Japan derived from the basic resident registers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were organized. A questionnaire survey and interviews were conducted with members of the resident welfare division of the village office of Chibu Village, Oki-gun, Shimane Prefecture, and the answers were qualitatively analyzed.</p><p><b>Results: </b>A large number of persons of advanced age have moved out from Oki Island. The destinations have varied by year and included places outside Shimane Prefecture. There were no hospitalization facilities or nursing homes in Chibu Village. The only establishment that provided nursing services was the social welfare council. Available home care services were only home-visit care and visiting care. The most common place of death was hospitals outside the island. The communities were characterized by strong ties and mutual assistance among people in the neighborhood, which supported the lives of aged members.</p><p><b>Conclusions: </b>For persons of advanced age living on an isolated island to continue living in their familiar area, it was found necessary to improve the system for receiving people of advanced age who require nursing, and enhance the link between the government and residents to maintain mutual assistance activities among residents.</p>
ABSTRACT
The present hospital information systems are analyzed,with finding that hospital information isolated island phenomenon getting worse due to failure of interconnection of various systems and equipment vendors with different technologies.An integrated platform based on an enterprise service bus is proposed for hospital information,which can be connected into these heterogeneous systems,effectively minimizing the inter-system coupling,and achieving data and service interconnection,enabling an integrated and intelligent hospital architecture.
ABSTRACT
<b>Background:</b> To date there had been no investigations using the International Classification of Primary Care, Second Edition (ICPC-2) at a clinic on an isolated island. In order to analyze health problems on the island, we investigated the reasons for visits, chronic illnesses, and the number of cases referred to other medical facilities using the ICPC-2.<br><b>Methods:</b> The study was conducted over a 12-month period, from April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007. Patient complaints/symptoms were classified according to ICPC-2, and diseases of patients who regularly visited the clinic as of November 2006 were investigated.<br><b>Results:</b> Half of the patients that regularly visited the clinic had lifestyle-related or musculoskeletal diseases. On the first visit, several patients presented with cold, musculoskeletal, or skin symptoms. The specialist care to which the patients were most frequently referred was orthopedic surgery.<br><b>Conclusion:</b> Physicians working at a clinic on an isolated island need to be able to control lifestyle-related diseases and provide initial treatment for musculoskeletal or skin diseases.
ABSTRACT
We report a situation involving Kampo therapies on an isolated island and three cases treated with Kampo medicine on the island. The first author received outpatient training at the department of Japanese Oriental Medicine in Iizuka Hospital and provided medical care on the island for 3 years, using Kampo therapies.<BR>About one quarter of patients (total, 134) were prescribed Kampo therapies in April 2009, and we surveyed the number of patients who had taken each Kampo medicine for 2 years from April of 2008 to March of 2010. As to prescriptions of less than 4 weeks, Kampo medicines used for a cold ranked high. As to prescriptions exceeding 4 weeks, hachimijiogan, daiokanzoto and keishibukuryogan were the most prescribed medications, in descending order.<BR>We consider Kampo therapies to have been effective on this isolated island where there are many elderly people, and patients who must be treated comprehensively while giving consideration to their familial states. We also presume the environment of an isolated island to cause certain clinical conditions, water imbalances included, such that Kampo medicines for water imbalances tended to be prescribed frequently.<BR>Finally, learning Kampo therapies has highly motivated the first author to practice community medicine.