Development of the National Database by the Government and its Potential for Pharmacoepidemiology / 薬剤疫学

ABSTRACT

As the number of electronically submitted health insurance claims increases, so does the potential for the effective use of such valuable health data to improve quality health care. The Ministry of Health, Labor & Welfare (MHLW), thanks to the IT reform initiative in 2006 calling for creation of a national database (NDB) and its effective use for epidemiological studies, is developing NDB containing health insurance claims data as well as health checks and guidance data individually linked by encryption techniques. Procurement of the software (system development) and the hardware will be completed by the end of FY2008, and gradual collection of data will start in FY2009. In the first phase (FY2009-10), the analysis of the evaluation of Health Care Cost Containment Plans (HCCCP) will be the top priority and the economic evaluation of health checks and guidance may pose methodological challenges. In the second phase (FY2011-), after a full on-line submission of health insurance claims, MHLW will start to publish the findings of the analysis. Although the governing law limits the purpose of NDB to "development, implementation and evaluation of HCCCP", a report by the committee studying the use of health insurance claims data for the improvement of quality health care called for wider use of NDB for public interests in February 2008. Also, JSPE submitted a statement to the Minister in late 2007 calling for the use of NDB for pharmacoepidemiological purposes. For the opinions and demands of JSPE to materialize, continued support and effort from the members is greatly appreciated.