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Review
. 2017 Nov;79(4):515-525.
doi: 10.18999/nagjms.79.4.515.

Medical facility statistics in Japan

Nobuyuki Hamajima  1 , Takuya Sugimoto  1 , Ryo Hasebe  1 , Su Myat Cho  1 , Moe Khaing  1   2 , Tetsuyoshi Kariya  1 , Yu Mon Saw  1 , Eiko Yamamoto  1
Affiliations
Review

Medical facility statistics in Japan

Nobuyuki Hamajima et al. Nagoya J Med Sci. 2017 Nov.

Abstract

Medical facility statistics provide essential information to policymakers, administrators, academics, and practitioners in the field of health services. In Japan, the Health Statistics Office of the Director-General for Statistics and Information Policy at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is generating these statistics. Although the statistics are widely available in both Japanese and English, the methodology described in the technical reports are primarily in Japanese, and are not fully described in English. This article aimed to describe these processes for readers in the English-speaking world. The Health Statistics Office routinely conduct two surveys called the Hospital Report and the Survey of Medical Institutions. The subjects of the former are all the hospitals and clinics with long-term care beds in Japan. It comprises a Patient Questionnaire focusing on the numbers of inpatients, admissions, discharges, and outpatients in one month, and an Employee Questionnaire, which asks about the number of employees as of October 1. The Survey of Medical Institutions consists of the Dynamic Survey, which focuses on the opening and closing of facilities every month, and the Static Survey, which focuses on staff, facilities, and services as of October 1, as well as the number of inpatients as of September 30 and the total number of outpatients during September. All hospitals, clinics, and dental clinics are requested to submit the Static Survey questionnaire every three years. These surveys are useful tools for collecting essential information, as well as providing occasions to implicitly inform facilities of the movements of government policy.

Keywords: Japan; Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare; medical facility statistics; policy making.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Route of medical facility statistics reporting.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Medical services covered and uncovered by health insurance in Japan.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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