PRINCIPAL POLICIES OF THE TOKYO METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT

Upgrading Social Programs

With the decline in Japan's birthrate and the aging of its population, the changing nature of diseases, rising awareness of patients' rights and other major developments, greater demands than ever before are being expressed for the supply of comprehensive health care services closely matched to patient conditions. On a related front, a series of medical mishaps and inadequate availability of information for patients have combined to undermine the confidence of Tokyo's citizens in the state of their medical treatment, creating a critical need to visibly enhance the quality of health care from the patient's perspective.

To achieve these goals, it will be necessary to reverse the deficiencies that exist in the three critical areas of "transparency, reliability and efficiency." Under the benchmark theme of "open, reliable and waste-free health care," Tokyo-based medical treatment reforms are being advanced with the goal of realizing reliable, year-round, 24-hour patient-focused health care.

The following are specific examples of these efforts:

Patient-Focused Health Care

	The Patient Consultation Hotline handles a broad range of requests, questions from patients and their families. Another innovative patient service is the Tokyo Children's Health Care Guide, a computer-voice operated system that utilizes the latest advances in information technology to supply information on diagnosis and treatment of sick children.
	The Health Care Institution Information System supplies a wide range of data to health care institutions, allowing patients to independently choose where they will seek treatment. Also under way is the Information Disclosure and Regional Health Care Liaison Promotion Project, designed to disclose medical treatment information to patients and promote efficient health care teamwork.

Supplying Reliable, Year-Round, 24-Hour Health Care

Measures under way to improve Tokyo's emergency health care system include the Children's Primary Emergency Health Care System Improvement Support Scheme, the Holiday and All-Night Examination and Treatment Scheme and promotion of other action plans.

Innovative, Tokyo-based medical treatment reforms will continue to be energetically promoted. The goals are to lay a solid foundation for patient-focused health care, targeting all citizens and health care institutions in Tokyo, while supplying reliable, year-round 24-hour health care that allows all residents to receive proper medical treatment for their conditions at any time and with total peace of mind.

Metropolitan Hospital Reform

The essential role of metropolitan hospitals is to supply the citizens of Tokyo with appropriate health care sponsored by the TMG and supported by a comprehensive diagnosis and treatment infrastructure with premier levels of quality service and expertise. It is important that close collaboration with other health care institutions be achieved to ensure that the services rendered are of outstanding caliber. Working from this foundation, the 13 hospitals in this category furnish distinctive health and medical care in the fields of cancer treatment, perinatal care, infectious diseases, emergency treatment and other vital areas.

At the core of the reform of Tokyo-based medical treatment are vigorous efforts to carry out metropolitan hospital reforms through patient-centered health care true to the Charter of Patient's Rights at Metropolitan Hospitals; enhanced emergency care through the Tokyo ER program; improved health care services backed by strategic reorganization of metropolitan hospitals; and other measures.

Based on the Master Plan for Reforms in Metropolitan Hospitals issued in December 2001, as well as the Metropolitan Hospital Reform Implementation Program established in January 2003, the TMG continues to push forward with metropolitan hospital reform, striving to further expand the breadth and raise the level of the health care services available to the people of Tokyo.