ABSTRACT
Health reform is a critical policy theme for the Japanese administration. The specific means of health reform have been made clear through discussion in Government councils. The Government is planning to establish a new organization to improve the quality of healthcare and patient safety through the 2014 health law amendment. As a result of the establishment of new national databases on healthcare, improvement efforts based on more detailed analysis of quality and safety data have become possible. The current healthcare delivery system is poorly organized and there is a lack of managerial governance at the regional level. This has impeded the effective formation of medical teams to deliver optimal care to patients and has had an adverse effect on the improvement of clinical practices. As a consequence, the Government is planning to grant healthcare delivery organizations a non-profit holding company status, through which large-scale healthcare entities can form core players providing comprehensive community care. The Government has coined the term “Data Health” to focus more on a healthy population achieved by prevention, a strength of Japan’s, to realize longer life expectancy with lower healthcare expenditures. If it works as well as expected, Japan, already the nation with the longest healthy life expectancy in the world, may be able to further improve.
