Information processing device, information processing method and program

Abstract

To provide a technique capable of accurately estimating the number of patients, including patients with attributes not covered, when using health insurance information based primarily on employee insurance.SOLUTION: An information processing device for estimating the number of prescriptions of medical products, the information processing device comprises: acquisition means for acquiring a first number of patients, the number of patients with a first attribute to whom a medical product has been prescribed, from health insurance information based on employee insurance; estimation means for estimating a second number of patients, the number of patients with a second attribute different from the first attribute to whom the medical product has been prescribed, using the health insurance information; and output means for outputting the sum of the first number of patients and the second number of patients as the number of patients to whom the medical product has been prescribed. Estimating the second number of patients in the estimation means includes estimating the second number of patients with the second attribute to whom the medical product has been prescribed, which should be obtained on the basis of information of medical fees from an insurance medical institution, using the number of patients with the second attribute to whom the medical product has been prescribed, which is obtained on the basis of information of medical fees from a specific insurance medical institution, and the number of patients obtained from insurer information of the medical care system for the latter-stage elderly.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 3

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a program.

Background Art

[0002] Conventionally, there has been known a technique for grasping the number of patients with a specific disease or estimating medical expenses for each region by referring to medical fee statement (receipt) data (Patent Document 1). A receipt is a statement of charges created by a medical institution or a dispensing pharmacy that has provided insured medical care for each patient, separately for outpatient and inpatient services, to an insurer (such as a health insurance association).

Prior Art Documents

Patent Documents

[0003]

Patent Document 1

Summary of the Invention

Problems to be Solved by the Invention

[0004] Since receipt data is generally provided from individual medical institutions, it is difficult for a third party to obtain receipt data comprehensively like all patients. On the other hand, in the case of health insurance information based on employee insurance such as health insurance, relatively aggregated patient number information can be obtained, but the attributes of the subjects covered by the insurance are restricted (for example, subjects aged 75 or older and subjects of regional insurance are not included). Therefore, when mainly using health insurance information based on employee insurance, how to handle the number of patients with attributes outside the target becomes a problem.

[0005] The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object thereof is to realize a technique capable of accurately estimating the number of patients including patients with attributes outside the target when mainly using health insurance information based on employee insurance.

Means for Solving the Problems

[0006] To solve this problem, for example, the information processing apparatus of the present invention is an information processing apparatus for estimating the number of prescriptions of pharmaceuticals, an acquisition means for acquiring a first number of patients, which is the number of patients of a first attribute for whom the pharmaceutical has been prescribed, from health insurance information based on employee insurance; an estimation means for estimating a second number of patients, which is the number of patients of a second attribute for whom the pharmaceutical has been prescribed and is different from the first attribute, using the health insurance information; and an output means for outputting the sum of the first number of patients and the second number of patients as the number of patients for whom the pharmaceutical has been prescribed, wherein estimating the second number of patients by the estimation means includes estimating the number of patients of the second attribute for whom the pharmaceutical has been prescribed, which should be obtained based on information on medical fees by insurance medical institutions, using the number of patients of the second attribute for whom the pharmaceutical has been prescribed obtained based on information on medical fees by a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients obtained from insurer information of the late-stage elderly medical system.

Advantages of the Invention

[0007] According to the present invention, when mainly using health insurance information based on employee insurance, it becomes possible to accurately estimate the number of patients including patients with attributes not covered.

Brief Description of the Drawings

[0008]

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

Mode for Carrying Out the Invention

[0009] Hereinafter, embodiments will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Note that the following embodiments do not limit the invention according to the claims, and not all combinations of the features described in the embodiments are essential for the invention. Two or more of the plurality of features described in the embodiments may be arbitrarily combined. Also, the same or similar configurations are denoted by the same reference numerals, and redundant descriptions are omitted.

[0010] (Configuration of the Estimation System) First, with reference to FIG. 1, the configuration of the estimation system 10 according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described. The estimation system 10 includes, for example, an information processing device 100 and a communication device 110 used by a user 20 such as a pharmaceutical company. The information processing device 100 is, for example, a server managed by a service company that provides a service for estimating the number of prescriptions of pharmaceuticals. The user 20 checks the number of prescriptions of its own products in a specific period (for example, the recent few months) or checks the trend of the number of prescriptions over time.

[0011] The information processing device 100 estimates the number of patients for whom pharmaceuticals have been prescribed using health insurance information based on dependent insurance by means of a prescription number estimation process, the details of which will be described later. Health insurance information based on dependent insurance such as health insurance includes, for example, information indicating when an enrollee received treatment such as what treatment, at which medical institution, and what pharmaceuticals were prescribed. Note that the insurer information and national health insurance of the late-stage elderly medical system described below also include the same information. Note that health insurance information based on dependent insurance is restricted in the attributes of the insured persons, for example, it does not include persons aged 75 or older or persons insured by regional insurance (such as national health insurance).

[0012] In this embodiment, in order to estimate the number of patients including patients with various attributes, information on medical fees by insurance medical institutions and insurer information of the long-term care insurance system for the elderly (also simply referred to as long-term care insurance information for the elderly) are used. The information on medical fees by insurance medical institutions includes, for example, information in a medical fee statement (receipt). The information on medical fees by insurance medical institutions may include information on off-campus prescriptions or be associated with information on off-campus prescriptions so as to obtain information on prescriptions inside and outside the insurance medical institution. The information on off-campus prescriptions can be obtained, for example, from DPC survey data. However, it is difficult to obtain information on medical fees by insurance medical institutions from all medical institutions. For example, although information obtained from large-scale base hospitals is included, there may be a bias in the medical institutions that provide information, such as the information from small-scale clinics not being included.

[0013] On the other hand, the long-term care insurance information for the elderly targets people aged 75 or older and has no bias due to medical institutions or the occupation of patients (such as whether they are self-employed or not). Therefore, it is also considered that the long-term care insurance information for the elderly can complement health insurance information based on employee insurance targeting people aged 74 or younger. However, the long-term care insurance information for the elderly may have a lower update frequency than other information such as health insurance information (for example, the update frequency is once a year). Therefore, the long-term care insurance information for the elderly may not be suitable as it is for uses such as grasping the trend of the number of prescriptions every few months (by pharmaceutical companies).

[0014] In the prescription number estimation process according to this embodiment, based on health insurance information based on employee insurance, various processes are performed to utilize information on medical fees by insurance medical institutions and long-term care insurance information for the elderly in order to suppress delays and accurately estimate the number of patients.

[0015] In this embodiment, an example will be described in which the information processing apparatus 100 has already acquired health insurance information based on employee insurance (also simply referred to as health insurance information), medical reimbursement information from insurance medical institutions, health insurance information based on national health insurance (also simply referred to as national health insurance information), and late-stage elderly information inside the information processing apparatus 100. In this case, for example, a service company that manages the information processing apparatus 100 collects the above information from a health insurance association, a medical institution, etc. and stores it inside the information processing apparatus 100.

[0016] Alternatively, the information processing apparatus 100 may appropriately access an external database constructed by collecting the above information from a company other than the above service company from a health insurance association, a medical institution, etc. The health insurance information may be obtained from each of a health insurance association, a mutual aid association, and a mutual aid society. In addition, the information on medical reimbursement by an insurance medical institution may include information on the insurance medical institution, and information on medical treatment acts, treatments, prescriptions, examinations, etc. included in, for example, receipt data and electronic medical record data for each patient. From the information on medical reimbursement by an insurance medical institution, information indicating when, at which medical institution, what kind of treatment, etc. the patient received and what medicines were prescribed can be obtained.

[0017] The information processing apparatus 100 can communicate via the communication device 110 and the network 120. In this embodiment, an example will be described in which the information processing apparatus 100 is a server on the cloud. However, the information processing apparatus 100 is not limited to this, and may be realized by a virtual machine, an edge server, a computer placed on a small-scale network, or the like. Also, in this embodiment, an example will be described in which the communication device 110 is, for example, a personal computer. However, the communication device 110 is not limited to this, and may be, for example, another terminal capable of using a service for estimating the number of prescribed medicines using a browser or a dedicated application, such as a smartphone or a tablet-type terminal.

[0018] (Summary of the Invention) Next, with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3, the outline of the present invention will be described. FIG. 2 shows an example of a possible prescription number estimation process when using health insurance information (health insurance information) based on insured person insurance. The example shown in FIG. 2 shows an example of estimating the number of patients for whom a specific drug has been prescribed. Since the insured person insurance is for persons aged 74 or younger, when extracting the number of patients for whom a specific drug has been prescribed from the health insurance information, an estimated number of patients aged 74 or younger 204 can be obtained. In this case, for patients aged 75 or older, the accuracy of the estimated number of patients can be improved by complementing the number of patients for whom a specific drug has been prescribed (estimated number of patients aged 75 or older 205). Note that in the present embodiment, without particularly specifying, when obtaining various estimated numbers of patients, the information processing apparatus 100 may execute a process of estimating the number of patients nationwide from the number of patients of a part of the subscribers. For example, the information processing apparatus 100 may obtain the estimated number of patients aged 74 or younger 204 by performing a process of estimating the number of patients nationwide of the subscribers of the insured person insurance aged 74 or younger from the number of patients of the subscribers of the insured person insurance aged 74 or younger.

[0019] The estimated number of patients aged 75 or older 205 may be obtained from the late-stage elderly information as described above, but the update frequency may be different from that of the health insurance information. For example, when the update frequency of the late-stage elderly information is once a year, it is not possible to grasp the prescription status of drugs that have been on the market for less than one year since the start of sales or the trends in recent months. On the other hand, the estimated number of patients aged 75 or older 205 may be obtained from the information on medical fees by insurance medical institutions that does not depend on the age of the patients. For example, in the information on the medical fees, the ratio of patients aged 75 or older to patients aged 74 or younger can be calculated. By performing a calculation using this ratio of patients aged 75 or older and the estimated number of patients aged 74 or younger 204, the estimated number of patients aged 75 or older 205 can be calculated. However, as described above, since it is difficult to obtain information on medical fees from all medical institutions, there is a bias in the medical institutions of the information providers, which may affect the estimation result of the number of patients.

[0020] If the estimated number of patients aged 75 or above, 205, can be estimated, the total number of patients of all ages (estimated number of patients 202) for whom a specific pharmaceutical product was prescribed can be obtained by calculating the sum of the estimated number of patients aged 74 or below, 204, and the estimated number of patients aged 75 or above, 205 (or the estimated number of patients aged 75 or above, 301, described later). By multiplying the estimated number of patients 202 by a predetermined number of prescriptions per patient (number of prescriptions per patient 203), the total number of prescriptions (estimated total number of prescriptions 201) can be estimated.

[0021] Next, with reference to FIG. 3, the prescription number estimation process according to the present embodiment will be described. In the prescription number estimation process according to the present embodiment, various processes for more accurately calculating the estimated number of patients aged 75 or above, 205, described with reference to FIG. 2, are added. In particular, in the present embodiment, the ratio of patients aged 75 or above (75 - year - old or above correction coefficient) is accurately calculated and multiplied by the estimated number of patients aged 74 or below obtained from the insured person's insurance information, thereby accurately calculating the estimated number of patients aged 75 or above. Note that 201 - 204 described with reference to FIG. 2 are the same in the description of FIG. 3.

[0022] In the present embodiment, the information processing apparatus 100 extracts the number of patients aged 75 or above, 303, for whom a specific pharmaceutical product was prescribed, from the medical reimbursement information collected from a specific insurance medical institution. The specific insurance medical institution is a part of a number of insurance medical institutions and is an insurance medical institution for which information acquisition has been made possible through a contract or the like. The specific insurance medical institution includes, for example, relatively large - scale insurance medical institutions such as a base hospital or a university hospital. Further, the information processing apparatus 100 extracts the number of patients aged 74 or below, 304, for whom a specific pharmaceutical product was prescribed, from the medical reimbursement information collected from the specific insurance medical institution. At this time, since the medical reimbursement information collected from the specific insurance medical institution includes or is associated with information on prescriptions outside the hospital, the information processing apparatus 100 can calculate the number of patients aged 75 or above, 303, for whom a specific pharmaceutical product was prescribed, including in - hospital and out - of - hospital prescriptions, and the number of patients aged 74 or below, 304, for whom a specific pharmaceutical product was prescribed (that is, these numbers of patients can be calculated more accurately in line with the actual situation).

[0023] Next, the information processing apparatus 100 calculates a patient number ratio 305 between the number of patients in a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions. The information processing apparatus 100 calculates a patient number ratio 305-1 for patients aged 75 or older using the late-stage elderly information. On the other hand, the information processing apparatus 100 calculates a patient number ratio 305-2 for patients aged 74 or younger using the health insurance information based on employee insurance. The late-stage elderly information includes information indicating when, at which insurance medical institution, and which pharmaceutical product each patient aged 75 or older was prescribed. The health insurance information also includes information indicating when, at which insurance medical institution, and which pharmaceutical product each patient aged 74 or younger was prescribed. Therefore, the information processing apparatus 100 can calculate the patient number ratio 305-1 between the patients prescribed a specific pharmaceutical product at a specific insurance medical institution and the patients prescribed the same specific pharmaceutical product at other insurance medical institutions among the patients included in the late-stage elderly information. That is, by using the late-stage elderly information, the patient number ratio 305-1 according to the actually aggregated number of patients in a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions can be obtained. By doing so, even when using the medical remuneration information collected from a specific insurance medical institution, the number of patients considering the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions can be calculated, so that the accuracy of the estimated number of patients 301 aged 75 or older can be improved. When a specific pharmaceutical product is a new product, due to the low update frequency, there may be no information on the specific pharmaceutical product in the late-stage elderly information. To address such a case, instead of extracting the number of patients prescribed a specific pharmaceutical product in the insurer information of the late-stage elderly medical system, the information processing apparatus 100 can extract the number of patients prescribed a pharmaceutical product in the same category (e.g., the same drug efficacy) as the specific pharmaceutical product and calculate the patient number ratio 305-1.

[0024] On the one hand, the information processing device 100 calculates the patient number ratio 305-2 between the patients who have been prescribed a specific pharmaceutical product by a specific insurance medical institution and the patients who have been prescribed the specific pharmaceutical product by other insurance medical institutions among the patients included in the health insurance information (aged 74 or younger). Also in this case, by using the health insurance information, the patient number ratio 305-2 according to the actually measured number of patients in a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions can be obtained. Note that the update frequency of the health insurance information may be higher than that of the late-stage elderly information, and the update frequencies of the respective information may be different. For this reason, instead of extracting the number of patients who have been prescribed a specific pharmaceutical product in the health insurance information, the information processing device 100 can extract the number of patients who have been prescribed a pharmaceutical product in the same category as the specific pharmaceutical product and calculate the patient number ratio 305-2. By doing so, the calculation methods of the patient number ratios 305-1 and 305-2 can be made consistent.

[0025] The information processing device 100 applies the patient number ratio 305-1 (for example, multiplication) to the number of patients aged 75 or older 303 who have been prescribed a specific pharmaceutical product. Thereby, the number of patients aged 75 or older who should be obtained based on the medical remuneration information by the insurance medical institutions (including specific and other insurance medical institutions) and who have been prescribed the specific pharmaceutical product can be acquired. Similarly, the information processing device 100 applies the patient number ratio 305-2 (for example, multiplication) to the number of patients aged 74 or younger 304 who have been prescribed a specific pharmaceutical product. Thereby, the number of patients aged 74 or younger who should be obtained based on the medical remuneration information by the insurance medical institutions (including specific and other insurance medical institutions) and who have been prescribed the specific pharmaceutical product can be acquired.

[0026] Through these processes, the number of patients aged 75 or older who have been prescribed a specific pharmaceutical product and the number of patients aged 74 or younger who have been prescribed a specific pharmaceutical product are obtained. The information processing device 100 calculates the ratio of these patient numbers (that is, the correction coefficient 302 for those aged 75 or older). The information processing device 100 can estimate the number of patients aged 75 or older by applying the correction coefficient 302 for those aged 75 or older (for example, multiplication) to the above-mentioned estimated number of patients aged 74 or younger 204.

[0027] In other words, taking the example of FIG. 3, the information processing apparatus 100 estimates the number of patients aged 75 or above for whom a medicine has been prescribed, which should be obtained based on the medical reimbursement information of insurance medical institutions, by using the number of patients aged 75 or above for whom a medicine has been prescribed, which is obtained based on the medical reimbursement information of a specific insurance medical institution, and the number of patients obtained from the insurer information of the late-stage elderly medical insurance system. Further, the information processing apparatus 100 estimates the number of patients aged 74 or below for whom a medicine has been prescribed, which should be obtained based on the medical reimbursement information of insurance medical institutions, by using the number of patients aged 74 or below for whom a medicine has been prescribed, which is obtained based on the medical reimbursement information of a specific insurance medical institution, and the number of patients obtained from the health insurance information based on employee insurance. At this time, the insurance medical institutions include a specific insurance medical institution and other insurance medical institutions. Therefore, the information processing apparatus 100 adjusts the number of patients aged 75 or above obtained based on the medical reimbursement information of a specific insurance medical institution by using the number of patients obtained from the insurer information of the late-stage elderly medical insurance system, so as to estimate the number of patients aged 75 or above (the number of patients aged 75 or above prescribed in all insurance medical institutions) that should be obtained based on the medical reimbursement information of the specific insurance medical institution and other insurance medical institutions.

[0028] (Configuration of Information Processing Apparatus) Next, a functional configuration example of the information processing apparatus 100 will be described with reference to FIG. 4. Note that each of the functional blocks to be described may be integrated or separated, and the functions to be described may be realized by other blocks. Also, what is described as hardware may be realized by software, and vice versa.

[0029] The communication unit 401 includes a communication circuit that communicates with various devices via a network. The communication unit 401 receives the information processed by the control unit 404 from a communication partner device (for example, the communication device 110), or transmits the information processed by the control unit 404 to the communication partner device. The power supply unit 402 is a power supply that provides the power required for the operation of the information processing apparatus 100.

[0030] The storage unit 403 includes a non-volatile storage medium such as a hard disk or a semiconductor memory, and includes various programs executed by the control unit 404 of the information processing apparatus 100, various data and databases used by the control unit 404. The various programs include, in addition to the program for executing the prescription number estimation process according to the present embodiment, an operating system, a framework, a library, and the like. The various data includes, for example, the setting values of the information processing apparatus 100. Further, the storage unit 403 includes the insured person insurance information 431, the insurance medical institution information 432, the late-stage elderly information 433, and the national health insurance information 434. The insured person insurance information 431 is the health insurance information based on the above-described insured person insurance. As described above, the health insurance information includes information indicating when the subscriber received treatment such as what kind of treatment at which medical institution and what kind of medicine was prescribed. The insurance medical institution information 432 includes the medical fee information by the above-described insurance medical institution. The late-stage elderly information 433 includes the above-described late-stage elderly information. The national health insurance information 434 includes information indicating when the subscribers who subscribe to the national health insurance under 74 years old received treatment such as what kind of treatment at which medical institution and what kind of medicine was prescribed.

[0031] The control unit 404 includes a CPU 410 which is a central processing unit and a RAM 411. The control unit 404 controls the operations of each part inside the control unit 404 and the operations of each part of the information processing apparatus 100 by expanding and executing the program stored in the storage unit 403 in the RAM 411. Further, the control unit 404 executes the prescription number estimation process using each part in the control unit 404.

[0032] The RAM 411 includes a volatile storage medium such as a DRAM, and temporarily stores parameters, processing results, etc. for the control unit 404 to execute a program.

[0033] The information acquisition unit 420 acquires necessary information (for example, various patient numbers shown in FIG. 3 etc.) from the insured person insurance information 431, the insurance medical institution information 432, the late-stage elderly information 433, and the national health insurance information 434 stored in the storage unit 403.

[0034] The patient number estimation unit 421 performs calculations such as those of the patient number ratios 305-1 and 305-2 described with reference to FIG. 3, operations using these patient number ratios, calculation of the correction coefficient 302 for 75 years old and above, and estimation of the estimated patient number 301 for 75 years old and above. Further, the patient number estimation unit 421 can calculate the estimated patient number 202 from the estimated patient number 204 for 74 years old and below and the estimated patient number 301 for 75 years old and above.

[0035] The prescription number estimation unit 422 multiplies the estimated patient number 202 by a predetermined number of prescriptions per patient (number of prescriptions per patient 203) to estimate the estimated total number of prescriptions 201 for a specific pharmaceutical product. Further, the prescription number estimation unit 422 can transmit the estimated estimated total number of prescriptions 201 to the communication device 110 via the communication unit 401. Note that the estimated total number of prescriptions 201 may be estimated for each length of various periods. The prescription number estimation unit 422 can estimate six estimated total number of prescriptions 201 for each two-month period. In this way, the transition of the number of prescriptions for one year's worth of pharmaceuticals can be shown every two months.

[0036] (Configuration of the communication device) Furthermore, a configuration example of the communication device 110 will be described with reference to FIG. 5. FIG. 5 shows a functional configuration example of the communication device 110 of the present embodiment. Note that each of the functional blocks to be described may be integrated or separated, and the functions to be described may be realized by another block. Also, what is described as hardware may be realized by software, and vice versa.

[0037] The communication unit 501 includes, for example, a communication circuit or the like, and transmits and receives necessary data by communicating with the information processing device 100 via mobile communication such as LTE or by communicating with the information processing device 100 via wireless communication such as WiFi.

[0038] The operation unit 503 includes a keyboard and a touch panel, and accepts operations on various operation screens displayed on the display unit 505. The display unit 505 includes a display panel such as an LCD or an OLED, and displays GUIs for various operations. For example, the display unit 505 receives information indicating the estimated total prescription number 201 calculated by the information processing apparatus 100, and causes the information to be displayed on the display unit 505 via, for example, a web browser or a dedicated application.

[0039] The recording unit 506 includes a non-volatile memory such as a semiconductor memory, and stores the set user information, programs executed by the control unit 502, and the like.

[0040] The control unit 502 includes a CPU 510 and a RAM 511. For example, when the CPU 510 executes a program recorded in the recording unit 506, the control unit 502 controls the operations of each functional block in the control unit 502 and each unit in the communication device 110.

[0041] (Another example of prescription number estimation processing) Next, with reference to FIG. 6, another example of the prescription number estimation processing according to the present embodiment will be described. In the example described with reference to FIG. 3, the number of patients who were prescribed a specific drug was extracted from the health insurance information based on employee insurance, and the estimated number of patients under 74 years old 204 was calculated. Therefore, the calculated estimated number of patients under 74 years old 204 does not include the number of patients who are enrolled in the National Health Insurance, which is a regional insurance. Therefore, when calculating the estimated number of patients under 74 years old 204, the number of patients 601 obtained from the health insurance information based on employee insurance and the number of patients 602 obtained from the health insurance information based on the National Health Insurance are added together. Thereby, the estimated number of patients under 74 years old 204 can be calculated more accurately, taking into account the number of patients enrolled in the National Health Insurance.

[0042] Although Figure 6 shows a simple example, various calculations can be performed to more appropriately estimate each of the number of patients 601 and the number of patients 602. The information processing apparatus 100 extracts, for example, from the national health insurance information, the ratio of patients to whom a specific pharmaceutical product has been prescribed (national health insurance patient ratio) for the subscribers of the national health insurance and stores it. The information processing apparatus 100 can extract the number of patients who have been prescribed a pharmaceutical product in the same category as the specific pharmaceutical product and use it as the national health insurance patient ratio. In this way, even when the update frequency of the national health insurance information is low, by multiplying the national health insurance patient ratio by the number of subscribers of the national health insurance, the number of patients (i.e., the number of patients 602) in the latest national health insurance information can be estimated. Further, the information processing apparatus 100 can also calculate the number of patients 602 obtained from the health insurance information based on the national health insurance using the number of patients 601 obtained from the health insurance information based on the employee insurance. Specifically, the information processing apparatus 100 can estimate the number of patients 602 obtained from the health insurance information based on the national health insurance by applying (for example, multiplying) a correction coefficient to the number of patients 601 obtained from the health insurance information based on the employee insurance. This correction coefficient represents the ratio between the number of patients nationwide in the national health insurance information and the number of patients nationwide based on the employee insurance. The information processing apparatus 100 can estimate the latest number of patients 602 among the subscribers of the national health insurance by multiplying the previously obtained correction coefficient by the number of patients based on the latest employee insurance. Note that the number of patients nationwide in the national health insurance information can be calculated by multiplying the number of subscribers nationwide of the national health insurance by the ratio of the number of patients (to whom a specific pharmaceutical product has been prescribed) in the national health insurance information. Also, the number of patients nationwide in the health insurance information based on the employee insurance can be calculated by multiplying the number of subscribers nationwide of the health insurance based on the employee insurance by the ratio of the number of patients (to whom a specific pharmaceutical product has been prescribed) in the health insurance information. In this way, by further considering the national health insurance information, for the estimated number of patients 204 aged 74 or younger as well, a number of patients with less delay and high accuracy can be estimated.

[0043] (A series of operations of the prescription number estimation process in the information processing apparatus) Next, a series of operations of the prescription number estimation process in the information processing apparatus will be described with reference to FIG. 7. Each operation described in this series of operations is realized by the control unit 404 causing the program stored in the storage unit 403 to be expanded and executed in the RAM 411, thereby causing each part of the control unit 404 described above to function.

[0044] In S701, the information acquisition unit 420 acquires the number of patients with the first attribute (for example, 74 years old or younger) from the health insurance information based on the insured person's insurance. This process corresponds to acquiring the estimated number of patients under 74 years old 204 described above.

[0045] In S702, the patient number estimation unit 421 calculates the ratio of the number of patients in a specific insurance medical institution to the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions using the insurer information of the late-stage elderly medical system. This process corresponds to the calculation of the patient number ratio 305-1 described above.

[0046] In S703, the patient number estimation unit 421 calculates the ratio of the number of patients in a specific insurance medical institution to the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions using the health insurance information based on the insured person's insurance. This process corresponds to the calculation of the patient number ratio 305-2 described above.

[0047] In S704, the patient number estimation unit 421 estimates the number of patients with the first attribute and the number of patients with the second attribute (for example, 75 years old or older) in the specific and other insurance medical institutions using the ratio of the number of patients in the specific insurance medical institution to the ratio of the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions. This process corresponds to the estimation of the number of patients in the specific and other insurance medical institutions described above.

[0048] In S705, the patient number estimation unit 421 estimates the number of patients with the second attribute using the number of patients with the first attribute and the ratio of the number of patients with the second attribute to the number of patients with the first attribute. This process corresponds to the estimation of the estimated number of patients 75 years old or older using the 75-year-old or older correction coefficient 302 described above.

[0049] In S706, the prescription number estimation unit 422 estimates the total number of prescriptions using the total number of patients (the sum of the number of patients with the first attribute and the number of patients with the second attribute) and the number of administrations per patient. This process corresponds to the process of estimating the estimated total number of prescriptions 201 described above. When the control unit 404 outputs the total number of prescriptions, it ends the series of operations of the prescription number estimation process.

[0050] As described above, in this embodiment, from the health insurance information based on the insured person's insurance, the number of patients under 74 years old for whom a medicine has been prescribed is obtained, and using this health insurance information, the number of patients 75 years old or older for whom a medicine has been prescribed is estimated. At this time, the number of patients 75 years old or older that should be obtained based on the medical reimbursement information of the insurance medical institution is estimated using the number of patients 75 years old or older based on the medical reimbursement information of a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients obtained from the insurer information of the late-stage elderly medical system. In this way, by using the late-stage elderly information, it is possible to calculate based on the ratio of the number of patients of a specific insurance medical institution actually measured and the number of patients of other insurance medical institutions, so the number of patients 75 years old or older can be estimated more accurately. In other words, when mainly using the health insurance information based on the insured person's insurance, it becomes possible to accurately estimate the number of patients including patients with attributes not covered.

[0051] In the above-described embodiment, in the prescription number estimation process, the case where the number of patients under 74 years old for whom a medicine has been prescribed and the number of patients 75 years old or older for whom a medicine has been prescribed are calculated respectively was described as an example. However, the prescription number estimation process may estimate the number of patients for whom a medicine has been prescribed by calculating the number of patients under 64 years old for whom a medicine has been prescribed and the number of patients 65 years old or older for whom a medicine has been prescribed respectively. Hereinafter, the prescription number estimation process using this method will be described with reference to FIG. 8.

[0052] The health insurance information based on employee insurance includes information on employees aged 65 or older and 74 or younger. Generally, it is assumed that those who are enrolled in employee insurance at this age are in good health to the extent that they can continue working. On the other hand, it is also assumed that information on patients aged 65 or older and 74 or younger who are undergoing treatment due to hospitalization or the like may not be included in the health insurance information. That is, among the health insurance information, the information on employees aged 65 or older and 74 or younger may include a bias in health status.

[0053] Therefore, by calculating the number of patients under 64 years old for whom a drug has been prescribed and the number of patients 65 years old or older for whom a drug has been prescribed respectively, the estimation accuracy of the number of patients is improved. In particular, in the following process, the ratio of patients 65 years old or older (65-year-old or older correction coefficient) is calculated accurately, and this is multiplied by the estimated number of patients under 64 years old obtained from the employee insurance information to accurately calculate the estimated number of patients 65 years old or older. Note that 201-204 described in FIG. 2 are the same in the description of FIG. 8.

[0054] Also in the example shown in FIG. 8, the information processing apparatus 100 extracts the number 803 of patients 65 years old or older for whom a specific drug has been prescribed from the medical reimbursement information collected from a specific insurance medical institution. Further, the information processing apparatus 100 extracts the number 804 of patients under 64 years old for whom a specific drug has been prescribed from the medical reimbursement information collected from a specific insurance medical institution. Note that the specific insurance medical institution is an insurance medical institution for which information acquisition has become possible by means of a contract or the like, as in the above example, and the medical reimbursement information includes or is associated with information on out-of-hospital prescriptions.

[0055] Next, the information processing apparatus 100 calculates a patient number ratio 805 between the number of patients in a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions. The information processing apparatus 100 calculates a patient number ratio 805-1 for patients aged 75 or older using the late-stage elderly information. Here, the reason for using the patient number ratio 805-1 for patients aged 75 or older is that the ratio between the number of patients in a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions is based on little difference due to age (for example, the difference between patients aged 75 or older and patients aged 65 or older). Therefore, for the purpose of calculating the 65-and-older correction coefficient, the late-stage elderly information can also be utilized to calculate the patient number ratio between the number of patients in a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions. Similar to the above-described embodiment, instead of extracting the number of patients who have been prescribed a specific drug in the insurer information of the late-stage elderly medical system, the information processing apparatus 100 can extract the number of patients who have been prescribed a drug in the same category (for example, the same drug efficacy) as the specific drug and calculate the patient number ratio 805-1.

[0056] On the other hand, the information processing apparatus 100 calculates a patient number ratio 805-2 for patients aged 64 or younger using the health insurance information based on the employee insurance. That is, by using the health insurance information, the information processing apparatus 100 can obtain a patient number ratio 805-2 for patients aged 64 or younger according to the number of patients in a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients in other insurance medical institutions. Note that, instead of extracting the number of patients who have been prescribed a specific drug in the health insurance information, the information processing apparatus 100 can extract the number of patients who have been prescribed a drug in the same category as the specific drug and calculate the patient number ratio 805-2. By doing so, the calculation methods of the patient number ratios 805-1 and 805-2 can be made consistent. Next, the information processing apparatus 100 applies (for example, multiplies) the patient number ratio 805-1 to the number 803 of patients aged 65 or older for whom a specific pharmaceutical product has been prescribed. Thereby, it is possible to obtain the number of patients aged 65 or older for whom the specific pharmaceutical product has been prescribed, which should be obtained based on the medical reimbursement information by the insurance medical institutions (including the specific and other insurance medical institutions). Similarly, the information processing apparatus 100 multiplies the number 804 of patients aged 64 or younger for whom a specific pharmaceutical product has been prescribed by the patient number ratio 805-2. Thereby, in the specific insurance medical institution and other insurance medical institutions, it is possible to obtain the number of patients aged 64 or younger for whom the specific pharmaceutical product has been prescribed.

[0057] Furthermore, the information processing apparatus 100 calculates the ratio of the number of patients aged 65 or older to the number of patients aged 64 or younger for whom a specific pharmaceutical product has been prescribed (that is, the correction coefficient 802 for 65 or older). The information processing apparatus 100 can estimate the estimated number of patients aged 65 or older by applying (for example, multiplying) the correction coefficient 802 for 65 or older to the above-described estimated number 806 of patients aged 64 or younger.

[0058] In the method shown in FIG. 8 in this way, for the estimated number of patients aged 64 or younger, the information of the insured persons aged 64 or younger in the insured person insurance information including information of a highly reliable age group is used to calculate the estimated number of patients aged 64 or younger. On the other hand, for the number of patients aged 65 or older, the information of the insured persons aged 65 or older and 74 or younger included in the insured person insurance information is not used. Instead, the estimated number of patients aged 65 or older is calculated using the correction coefficient 802 for 65 or older based on the medical reimbursement information by the insurance medical institutions or the like. Even in this way, when mainly using the health insurance information based on the insured person insurance, it becomes possible to accurately estimate the number of patients including patients with non-target attributes.

[0059] The invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications and changes are possible within the scope of the gist of the invention.

Explanation of Reference Numerals

[0060] 100... Information processing apparatus, 110... Communication apparatus, 420... Information acquisition unit, 421... Patient number estimation unit, 422... Prescription number estimation unit

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus for estimating the number of patients for whom a medicine has been prescribed, comprising: acquisition means for acquiring, from health insurance information based on employee insurance, a first number of patients of a first attribute for whom the medicine has been prescribed; estimation means for estimating, using the health insurance information, a second number of patients of a second attribute different from the first attribute for whom the medicine has been prescribed, which is the second number of patients for whom the medicine has been prescribed; output means for outputting the sum of the first number of patients and the second number of patients as the number of patients for whom the medicine has been prescribed; wherein estimating the second number of patients in the estimation means includes estimating the number of patients of the second attribute for whom the medicine has been prescribed, which should be obtained based on information on medical remuneration by an insurance medical institution, using the number of patients of the second attribute for whom the medicine has been prescribed obtained based on information on medical remuneration by a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients obtained from insurer information of the late-stage elderly medical system. An information processing apparatus characterized by that.

2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein estimating the second number of patients in the estimation means further includes estimating the number of patients of the first attribute for whom the medicine has been prescribed, which should be obtained based on information on medical remuneration by an insurance medical institution, using the number of patients of the first attribute for whom the medicine has been prescribed obtained based on information on medical remuneration by the specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients obtained from the health insurance information based on employee insurance.

3. The insurance medical institutions include the specific insurance medical institution and other insurance medical institutions, The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein estimating the second number of patients in the estimation means includes estimating the number of patients of the second attribute that should be obtained based on information on medical remuneration by the specific insurance medical institution and other insurance medical institutions by adjusting the number of patients of the second attribute obtained based on information on medical remuneration by the specific insurance medical institution using the number of patients obtained from insurer information of the late-stage elderly medical system.

4. The number of patients obtained from the insurer information of the latter-stage elderly medical system includes the number of patients prescribed by the specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients prescribed by the other insurance medical institutions. The information processing apparatus according to claim 3, characterized in that.

5. The number of patients obtained from the insurer information of the latter-stage elderly medical system includes the number of patients prescribed with a drug in the same category as the drug in the insurer information of the latter-stage elderly medical system. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that.

6. The estimating means estimates the second number of patients by applying a predetermined coefficient to the first number of patients. The predetermined coefficient should be obtained based on the information on medical remuneration by the insurance medical institution adjusted using the number of patients obtained from the insurer information of the latter-stage elderly medical system, and includes the ratio of the number of patients of the first attribute to the number of patients of the second attribute for which the drug was prescribed. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that.

7. The acquiring means acquires the first number of patients, which is the number of patients of the first attribute for which the drug was prescribed obtained from the health insurance information based on the national health insurance, added thereto. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that.

8. The first number of patients is the number of patients 74 years old or younger for which the drug was prescribed, and the second number of patients is the number of patients 75 years old or older for which the drug was prescribed. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that.

9. The first number of patients is the number of patients 64 years old or younger for which the drug was prescribed, and the second number of patients is the number of patients 65 years old or older for which the drug was prescribed. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that.

10. An information processing method for estimating the number of prescriptions of a drug, executed by an information processing apparatus, An acquisition step of acquiring a first number of patients, which is the number of patients of a first attribute for whom the drug was prescribed, from health insurance information based on employee insurance; An estimation step of estimating a second number of patients, which is the number of patients of a second attribute different from the first attribute for whom the drug was prescribed, using the health insurance information; An output step of outputting the sum of the first number of patients and the second number of patients as the number of patients for whom the drug was prescribed, and including: In the estimation step, estimating the second number of patients includes estimating the number of patients of the second attribute for whom the drug was prescribed, which should be obtained based on information on medical fees by an insurance medical institution, using the number of patients of the second attribute for whom the drug was prescribed obtained based on information on medical fees by a specific insurance medical institution and the number of patients obtained from insurer information of the late-stage elderly medical system. An information processing method.

11. A program for causing a computer to function as each means of the information processing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 9.

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