Platanus medical corporation SAKURA SHINMACHI Urban Clinic

Doctor’s Home Visit

Our clinic has been providing an in-home medical care service in an urban district of Tokyo since 2009. We currently provide our service to over 300 patients. Our aims are “to support people and their families who wish to live at home as long as they can”, “to listen to and act upon their concerns and difficulties”, and “to provide indivisualised in-home medical care” while working closely with other local health and social care professionals.
We are a team of doctors, nurses, pharmacist, OT, PT, admin staff and drivers. We all value person-centred care and have passion on providing positive support for people and their families in our local area.
We continue to strive for excellence, and to be a clinic that provides evidence-based medical and nursing care in order to support, empower and reassure people and their families at home, regardless of their illness, disability or age.

The number of patients for the last 5 years

Patient's main diagnosis at Sakurashinmachi Urban Clinic

Community Nursing

Our community nurse team, called “Nurse Care Station”, provides nursing care to people who need it at home. Our nurses have developed excellent knowledge and skills in community nursing as well as in-home medical care while working closely with doctors at clinic. We support those at home, particularly those who have higher medical needs, with our person-centred care approach.
Our nurses have diverse experiences in dementia, palliative, paediatric, respiratory, and orthopaedic care. Nurses typically work independently in community nursing and with doctors in in-home medical care. This way of working provides good opportunities to be an independent, competent practitioner as well as to be an effective team player.

Patient's main diagnosis at our community nursing team

24 Hours a Day

We are available 24 hours a day seven days a week. We set up a team approach where doctors and nurses take turns and respond to calls from our patients and their families day and night. If it is required, we make an emergency visit to support them at home. The person and their family who receive medical care at home tend to feel vulnerable and anxious at night and over weekends. We believe that we have responsibility to support them whenever they need.

The number of emergency calls and emergency visits at Sakurachinmachi Urban Clinic

End of Life Care

The end of life care is an essential part of what we do. Our team of doctors, nurses, and pharmacist is supported by our in-house palliative care specialist, in order to provide support, comfort, and reassurance to the person and their family throughout a journey to the end of life. Currently about a half of new patients at our clinic have cancer as their primary diagnosis. We respect people's wishes. If they wish to live at home till the end of life, we support them with our best effort. We supported about 100 dying persons at home for the last year alone.

The number of death and the proportion of people who died at their usual residence,
including home, at Sakurashinmachi Urban Clinic between 2010 and 2014

Supporting Early Dementia

We have been involved in a government's pilot project, called the "Initial Phase Support Team for dementia", in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and Setagaya Ward Office since 2012. This is a new initiative in Japan where "a local specialist multidisciplinary team", consisting of doctors, nurses and OT, visits people who present with the early signs of dementia, but without diagnosis. We have been trying to establish our model of support for people with dementia with multidisciplinary approach. We hope to create more dementia friendly community where people with dementia feel supported and are able to live a full life.

Multidisciplinary Team Working

It is common that people and their families at home are supported by a range of local health and social care services. It is therefore fundamental that we, who work in the community, communicate well with the patients, their families and other local services, share information and work together. We have been working with more than 350 different local services, such as clinics, hospitals, community nurse teams and community care teams. We promote timely interactive communication with other local services, using a cloud-based communication tool, called EIR. Our patients always have access to their own medical notes. We also liaise closely with the local government and their regional general support centres.

The number of liaising institutions/services

Information Communication Technology

We assess, treat and care our patients not at clinic but at patient's home, and support them 24 hours a day. It is, therefore, vital for doctors and nurses who work in the community to have access to information anytime and anywhere. We also need to adapt the ways to make generally time consuming in-home medical care more efficient and to provide the high quality medical and nursing care for our patients.
We have developed an effective and efficient in-home medical care system, using information communication technology. We actively use smartphones and tablets to make communication easier and information more accessible at relatively inexpensive costs. A cloud-based communication tool, EIR, for example helps us to communicate securely with patient, their family and other local services in a timely manner.

Supporting Our Local Community

Our clinic holds seminars/conferences for local services and people on a regular basis. For the last year alone, we had eight sessions that were attended by 460 people in total. Our topics for the sessions are carefully chosen in order to share our experience working in the community and to actively engage with the needs and concerns of our local community. We are hoping to create positive learning environment and to build rapport with the community.

Presenting at Conferences

We have actively participated in conferences in the fields of medicine, nursing and allied health professionals in the community, such as The Japanese Academy of Home Care Physicians, The Japanese Society for Homecare Medicine, and The Japanese Association of Occupational Therapists. For the last two years, 13 members of our clinic presented 38 topics in seven different conferences. Our clinic encourages our staff to learn from daily practice, to share our experience with wider audience and to improve the quality of service we provide. 

Access

Enlarged map

Address

Asahiseimei Yoga Building 2F 2-15-5, Yoga Setagaya-ku, Tokyo Japan 158-0097

TEL. +0081 (0)3 5716 5220   FAX. +0081 (0)3 5716 5221

How to get to our office by train

Get off the Tokyu Denentoshi Line at Yoga station and go to the East exit.
While facing a main road, turn to the right and walk about 150m along the road till a traffic signal. Cross the road at the signal, and you will see the building with glass windows in front of you. Enter the building and go upstairs. Our office is located on the first floor of the building.