ABSTRACT
The long-term care insurance for the elderly system was officially implemented in July 2008, following a 3-year pilot program starting in 2005. The purpose of this system was to improve the quality of life of seniors and reduce the burden of care among family members, given the growing elderly population. By 2021, the scale of the system had increased by two to four times, with 860,000 beneficiaries and 9,824,800,000,000 KRW worth of insurance benefits. In line with this increase, it is necessary to efficiently establish and improve the system so that it can directly meet the medical needs of the beneficiaries. This may serve to reduce the rapidly increasing expenditure related to the elderly medical expenses, which in turn leads to a decrease in societal costs. In conclusion, senior care needs to be properly established and implemented in order to create organic intra- and inter-field connections between medicine, healthcare, and welfare.
ABSTRACT
The payment system such as national long term care insurance for the elderly and per diem rate for geriatric hospitals introduced in 2008 has greatly changed the Korean medical system for the elderly. Therefore, today it would be inevitable to discuss quality assessment of healthcare services provided by nursing facilities and geriatric hospitals in order to effectively establish and operate the introduced systems. Under these circumstances, in an effort to provide elderly people with high-quality medical services with limited resources, it is believed that the quality indicators need to include the following: (1) provision and management of medical services for major health problems; (2) assessment of quality of life for residents; (3) assessment of ADL and rehabilitation services so as to maintain and improve functions; (4) assessment of convenience of living facilities; and (5) assessment of rate of potential avoidable hospitalization in acute care hospitals. Moreover, along with an effort to define roles of nursing facilities and geriatric hospitals, it would be necessary to set up the feasible stepwise strategy through discussions with relevant institutions.