OBJECTIVES: This study aims to explore the role of pharmacist for patient safety activity in Japan. METHODS: We surveyed nationwide the situation of patient safety activities in hospitals allowed for additional costs on patient safety measures under the social insurance medical fee schedule using a questionnaire. We send the questionnaire including 14 fields and 93 items, to targeted 2,674 hospitals (all hospitals: 8,706 as of 1st June in 2010) in Japan, 669 hospitals responded (response rate: 25.0%). RESULTS: In the assignment of risk manager, mean number of full-time risk manager as a physician was 0.04 ± 0.24. Likewise, mean number of full-time risk manager as a nurse and a pharmacist were 0.88 ± 0.96 and 0.07 ± 0.25. And, mean number of incident reports filed by physicians, nurses, and pharmacists were 17.7 ± 44.6, 510.0 ± 753.7, and 30.8 ± 112.5 in FY 2007, 17.7 ± 45.4, 579.9 ± 782.5, and 31.4 ± 86.6 in FY 2008, and 20.5 ± 57.0, 651.7 ± 946.4, and 39.3 ± 171.2 in FY 2009. Mean number of full-time risk manager as a pharmacist was higher than that as a physician, and mean number of incident reports from pharmacists was larger than that from physicians in Japan. CONCLUSIONS: The role of pharmacists is getting increasingly larger for securing patient safety and pharmacists at hospitals are required to be much more involved in patient safety activity, as medication errors highly accounts for adverse events and Japan is suffering from a serious shortage of physicians. Instead, this study is required to be statistically investigated with adjusting number of beds.