Abstract

Household medicine lease (HML) industry originated way back in the Edo period (17C-19C), when it was promoted by the local fiefdom government to revitalize the economy. Accumulations of wealth, acquired thereafter from everywhere outside the region, have culminated in the formation of the present-day industrial cluster in Toyama, the largest in the whole area facing the Sea of Japan. Today an adaptation of the quasi-CRM (Customer Relationship Management) business model of the HML system has proved to be a success in Mongolia. This fact seems to offer us some clues for dealing with those problems that healthcare and medical services in Japan and elsewhere are riddled with. In this paper, focusing on the common critical success factors (CSFs) behind the success of our prototype HML system and its recent successful application in Mongolia, we will analyze these factors from the perspective of CRM. We will then clarify the following: 1) the usefulness of the business model for ensuring primary healthcare for people in developing countries, 2) the usefulness in our ubiquitous network society of applying ICT to the HML system, 3) what contributions the use of the system can make toward improving the quality of our everyday healthcare and medical services in our prominently aging society, and we will also suggest 4) the importance of elevating „individual self-medication‟ to „community-based self-medication.‟

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