Healthcare · Long-term Care · Welfare / Integrated Platform for Aging
As we age, the challenges that medicine alone cannot solve grow greater.
Health, care, daily life, family, isolation, and fear.
Hououkai builds an integrated system that spans healthcare, long-term care, and welfare.
Anxiety in old age cannot be resolved by medicine alone.
We need a system that encompasses daily life, care, health, and family.
Rather than fragmenting medicine, care, and daily support, we connect everything as one — from prevention and clinical visits to home care and lifestyle assistance. This is the core design of Hououkai.
No one should lose their dignity as they age. We support not only medical treatment itself, but the continuation of everyday life and peace of mind for families.
Addressing the anxieties of aging — through the lens of medicine, care, and welfare.
Supporting life, in its entirety.
Hououkai Medical Corporation
To sustain peace of mind over time, we provide support in a multi-layered structure.
Building daily peace of mind through prevention, consultation, and lifestyle improvement.
Reducing anxiety during home care and structurally easing the burden on families.
Connecting with facilities and communities to build a sustainable foundation for well-being.
The right support, in the right order. Connecting you to exactly what you need.
Ongoing support for questions about lifestyle habits, changes in health, and prevention.
Organizing visits, tests, and referrals to reliably connect you to the care you need.
Distributing the burden by connecting you with care services and support professionals.
Supporting daily life itself to build the foundation for a secure and dignified old age.
Not a single star physician, but a multidisciplinary team working in concert — that is what truly supports your peace of mind.
At Hououkai, physicians, nurses, care workers, social workers, and other professionals collaborate to assess the full scope of each person's life and organize the support they need. Our policy is to look beyond medical treatment alone — through to the continuation of everyday life.
We begin by clarifying your situation — identifying the form of support you need right now.
Tell us your concerns and worries, to whatever extent you are comfortable sharing.
We map out the full picture of support needed — from medical, care, and daily-life perspectives.
We align the direction of support with the individual, family, and relevant parties.
We connect you to the appropriate specialists and community resources, transitioning to ongoing support.
Words that illuminate the philosophy Hououkai holds dear, and the spirit that drives its journey forward.
Our Expectations for Hououkai Medical Corporation and Dr. Toru Chikazawa
Japan's medical and care industry has a total market scale of approximately ¥60 trillion — roughly 10% of GDP, ranking behind only manufacturing (¥100T / 18%), wholesale & retail (¥75T / 13%), and real estate (¥75T / 13%). The sector employs 8.9 million people, or 13% of the entire workforce, already surpassing manufacturing — and by 2040 it is projected to exceed 15%, becoming the single largest employer in Japan.
Yet this industry carries high barriers to entry and tends to discourage ambitious entrepreneurs. Because it relies primarily on public health and long-term care insurance, the normal rules of free competition and capitalism do not apply — and I have witnessed many young entrepreneurs struggle against this wall. It is a tremendous loss that such a vast industry has not yet been fully harnessed as an engine of Japan's industrial strength and economic growth.
In recent years, a new breed of motivated medical professionals has begun to break through these entrenched regulations and breathe fresh air into the field. That Hououkai and Dr. Toru Chikazawa have taken flight as prominent members of this vanguard is truly admirable — and as fellow stewards of healthcare and long-term care, we could not be more encouraged. Dr. Chikazawa spent time working at Hakuhoukai Medical Corporation, which I lead, and I have every confidence he will bring his frontline medical sensibility to bear in building something remarkable.
Director, Hakuhoukai Medical Corporation
Motohisa Kojo
Hopes for the Medicine of Tomorrow
As a cardiac surgeon, I trained under Professor Wada — the physician who attempted Japan's first heart transplant — and was present at that historic operation on August 8, 1968. Standing at the cutting edge of surgical medicine in a difficult era, and facing the threshold of life and death, I cultivated not only technical skill but also a profound sense that "medicine is a responsibility for the whole of a human life."
I am but one physician in a long continuum of history. Yet running through the path of medicine that our predecessors blazed is an enduring question — not merely of treatment technique, but of how to protect human life and dignity. The lineage of cardiac surgery, I believe, is at its core an endeavor to carry forward the weight of that question.
What aging society demands today is not medicine that treats only the illness, but a broader posture — one that sustains life and daily living through old age. So long as medicine, care, and welfare remain fragmented from one another, we cannot entrust the second half of life to them with confidence. I hold a quiet but deep hope that Hououkai will transcend those divisions, becoming a new foundation that supports people within their communities.
Honorary Chairman, Hououkai Medical Corporation
Makoto Chikazawa
Not merely to treat illness — but to support a life, through to its end.
Hououkai was founded to create a social foundation where people can age with peace of mind within their communities — treating medicine, care, and welfare not as separate domains, but as a single, unified flow.
The anxieties of old age go far beyond illness itself. The difficulty of getting to a clinic, the isolation of living alone, the burden of caregiving, life after discharge, and the question of how one wishes to face the end — these are not issues to be handled separately. They are challenges that must be supported as a whole.
The medical roots of Hououkai reach back 58 years. Our Honorary Chairman, cardiovascular surgeon Makoto Chikazawa — my grandfather — trained within the lineage of Professor Juro Wada, who performed Japan's first heart transplant, and devoted his life to saving the physical "heart" of countless people on the harshest frontlines of medicine. Inheriting that history and spirit, I have practiced as a psychiatrist — protecting the invisible "heart" (the mind) and providing medicine that supports the very foundation of daily life.
From the heart, to the mind ——
This lineage of life, carried forward pulse by pulse over 58 years, now finds a new vessel in Hououkai — evolving beyond the treatment of individual body and mind, into an "integrated health, care and welfare platform" that envelops the entire community.
In Sapporo, Otaru, and the communities beyond, we will fulfill our responsibility as an "integrated health, care and welfare platform" — supporting the wish of every person to remain healthy and at home, alongside their family, for as long as possible.
Director, Hououkai Medical Corporation
Toru Chikazawa
The latest updates from each service across the Hououkai Medical Corporation Group.
Addressing the anxieties of aging is best done early. Please don't hesitate to reach out.
Phone: 011-676-3597
Email: info@hououkai.com
Hours: Weekdays 10:00–18:00
HQ: 26-chome, Kita 5-jo Nishi, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido
※ Coverage areas for visits and partnerships are arranged individually.
