• Health Policy and Management
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.31-45
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• 2001

With an economic development and epidemiologic transition, the burden of disease due to chronic diseases and accidents is increasing. However, in most of developing countries, long-term care facilities are not available, therefore acute care facilities should provide both acute and long-term care services. It is also true in Korea. The demand for long-term care services needs to be estimated to establish the adequate supply system of health resources. This article introduces the reclassification methodology of inpatients' healthcare utilization to acute and long-term care services. All discharged patients from hospitals for one month were analyzed. The distribution of inpatients' hospital days were fitted to Chi-squared distribution by ICD disease categories, and they were grouped in five clusters. For each cluster, the lower and upper limit of classification criteria to acute and long-term care services were chosen. Summarizing all hospital days corresponding to acute and long-term care respectively, 24 to 28 percent of inpatient services fumed out to be long-term care services. The study results are consistent with those of the existing studies. They can be used practically in the allocation of long-term care resources.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.141-150
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine satisfaction with counseling in long-term care service, and to compare the scores of counseling satisfaction according to variables among beneficiaries of Korean long-term care services. Methods: Questionnaires were completed by 445 beneficiaries of long-term care insurance to measure satisfaction with counseling. Research design was cross-sectional descriptive design. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test and ANOVA for evaluating differences in satisfaction with counseling according to variables including economic status, the level of long-term care insurance approval, duration of long term care service, and conditions of counseling. Results: The score of satisfaction with counseling was somewhat high as 71.67. The score of counselor's attitude was highest among the subcategories of satisfaction. The factors that influenced satisfaction with counseling were frequency and time of counseling (F=12.19, p<.001). Conclusion: Home-based individual counseling is necessary for the elderly who need long-term care service. The National Long-term Care Insurance Corporation should offer counseling and assistance to elders and their caregivers about long term care insurance.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.119-131
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to analyze contents on media about the problems of long-term care facilities. For achieving this purpose, we reviewed 'KINDS(http://www.kinds.or.kr/)' from July, 2008 to May, 2012 which was an synthetic newspaper and TV news searching system. Among 320 articles, we finally analyzed 72 articles: 218 articles were duplicated and 30 articles did not directly related or were not objective. The results were divided with seven parts: 'long-term care facilities', 'employee' 'health care and accidents', 'providing and management of service', 'meals related problems', 'maltreatment of client', 'disorders & unfairness long-term care benefit. Among these seven parts, we could confirm specific and major problems, which were lack of safety management, incompleteness facilities & equipments, shortage of long-term care manpower, insufficient service providing low quality of service, hiding money from elderly's accounts, and providing some money to get national subsidies. For resolving these problems, the long-term service guidelines must be prepared and the related facilities must cooperate each other for providing high quality of service. In addition, the efficient systems must be made to find out long-term care problems and unfairness of service providing and strict management rules or sanctions must be needed.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.522-537
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to analyze the level of the cognitive function and activities of daily living of the beneficiary older adults at home based on Korean Long-term Care Insurance System. A cross-sectional descriptive survey was conducted from November 2010 to May 2011, the final respondents were 1,026 beneficiary older adults taking home visit care covered in Korean long-term care insurance system. The questionnaire included general characteristics of subjects, cognitive function, ADL(Activity of daily living). The data was analyzed using the SPSS 20.0 version. There was significant difference in cognitive function and ADL between 1st Grade, 2nd Grade and 3rd Grade of long-term care classification. The correlated factors of cognitive function were ADL, long-term care grade, disability of arm and leg, limitation of joint, bed sore and tube feeding. The correlated factors of ADL were cognitive function, long-term care grade, disability of arm and leg, bed sore and tube feeding. This study suggests that cognitive functions have to be mainly considered in long-term care grade. It is necessary to make an effort to develop long-term care grade in Korean long-term care insurance system an cognitive function improvement program for the beneficiary older adults. Above all things government will be seriously contemplating of revise contents for long-term care grade to provide quality of care for the older adults.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.105-117
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to investigate evaluation and improvement of long-term care hospitals for changing long-term care hospitals fee system. Data were collected from 104 CEOs in nationwide long-term care hospitals using structured self-administered questionnaires during August 17 to 31, 2009. Major results of the empirical analysis are as follows; first, to change fixed sum medical fee per day caused to decline the level of geriatric service in 87% of CEOs. Second, 79% of CEOs were dissatisfied with changing fixed sum medical fee per day, and 47% of them were dissatisfied with graded fee for doctor and nurse management. Finally, they suggested that to specialize and to differentiate of long-term care hospitals will drive to improve long-term care hospitals function and to measure workforce based on rate of filled vacancies will increase efficiency and productivity of doctor and nurse management.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.77-88
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• 2011

As same time of starting on the Korean Long-term Care Insurance System, the government developed a program to train new qualification of long-term care workers. The number of enrolled long-term care workers are 950,000 persons in 2010. Mostly they are working in home based care work places such as home visit care centers and home visit bathing centers covered insurance. The purpose of this study is to understand the difference of task performance requirement according to long-term care workers' responsibilities which divided into home visiting care and home visiting bathing. The comparison analysis was conducted to task performance requirement in basic management, safety management, administration management, practical services. Key result was found that task performance requirement of long-term care workers whose responsibilities are home visiting care were more higher than the home visiting bathing. Finally, To improve quality of home visiting care and home visiting bathing, it is necessary to provide the fields based continuing education and reflect new reimburse system.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.522-530
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• 2020

Background: In 2008, Korea implemented a new type of social insurance known as "long-term care insurance". We examined the association between ownership of long-term care facilities and the incidence of pressure ulcers after the implementation of "long-term care insurance". This study is a population-based retrospective cohort study from 2006 to 2013. Methods: We used medical claims data from the Korean National Health Insurance Corporate Elderly Cohort Database from 2006 to 2013. These data comprise a nationally representative sample. To avoid confounders, only patients admitted to one long-term care facility and who stayed for >70% of the follow-up time were included; as a result, 3,107 individuals were enrolled. The main independent variable was the operating entity of the long-term care facility (local government, corporate bodies, and private for-profit owners), and the dependent variable was the 1-year incidence of pressure-ulcers. Survival analysis (Cox proportional hazard model) was used as an analysis method. Results: Compared to patients admitted to local government long-term care facilities, patients admitted to private long-term care facilities had a significantly higher 1-year risk of pressure ulcers (hazard ratio [HR], 1.94; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.29-2.91); the risk was especially high among patients who were cognitively dependent (HR, 2.34; 95% CI, 1.25-4.37). Conclusion: Patients admitted to private for-profit long-term care facilities were more likely to have pressure ulcers compared to those in local government and corporate body long-term care facilities. Appropriate assessment tools and publicly available information, as well as more restricted legal requirements, are needed to improve the care quality and outcomes of patients in long-term care facilities.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.27-57
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• 1994

The objective of running a long-term care institution is to provide services helpful for maintaining, supporting, and improving elderlies' optimum level of physical, mental, and psychosocial functioning. For the purpose of analyzing the current situations of institutional long term care facilities in Korea, 27 facilities were selected proportionately from each of the cities and provinces, out of the total 152 facilities. About 20% of those who were institutionalized during 25 August through 2 Qctober 1993, the 391 elderlies were chosen on a systematic random basis. The instrument of this study was developed by modifying the tools of CARE, MAI and PCTC. A multivariate approach of discriminant analysis and clustering technique were employed for this study. The Stiudy reveals that there is no clear differentiation of goals and functions among the longterm care institutions in Korea. Staffing patte군 of long-term care facilities shows a shortage of nurses, physical therapists, and dieticians. The linkage between acute care facilities and long-term care is weak, and administration of long-term care faciltiy is carried out by non-professionals. They are responsible for assessing health status before entering the facility, and evaluating elderlies' care. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that most of the facilities have accommodated agede regardless of their real needs and health status. Based upon findings of the analysis, this study has classified long-term care facilities into four types : Type I is to help elderlies maintain independence in daily living activities. Type II facilities have the objective of maintaining and improving the current level of elderlies' function. Type III is to maintain maximum independence of elderlies in activities of daily living. And Type IV is identified for the group of facilities designed to restore or improve functional abilities of elderlies. In conclusion, the following suggestions are made : the need for long-term care should be assessed by multidimensional measurement. Institutional long-term care facilities should be classified and developed in response to type of type of care and service need. Both acute and long-term care facilities should be linked together in order to support the evaluation of service operation and program development.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.139-167
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• 2009

A new public insurance for long-term care was introduced in July 2008 to provide for the rising demand for long-term care as the population is aging rapidly. The demand for long-term care is expected to rise further because more and more elderly are living alone or in households with only other elderly, such as his/her spouse, without informal care of their adult children. Even when the elderly are living together with their adult children, daughters and daughters in law, once the main informal care-givers, are not available because they choose to become economically active and work more over time. Experiences of countries such as Japan and Germany with similar public long-term care insurance scheme highlight the importance of detailed analysis on the demand for long-term care for the financial stability of the insurance scheme. Countries which had underestimated the demand for long-term care at the time of adopting the scheme went through financial instability of insurance schemes. This study analyzes the determinants of the demand for long-term care using data from the second demonstration project (April 2006~April 2007) of the long-term care insurance scheme for the elderly in Korea. Taking full advantage of detailed data on the long-term care, this paper analyzes the eligibility for the long-term care insurance scheme and its use. According to study results, even when common diseases among the elderly such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, dementia, hypertension, etc. are controlled together with other individual and socioeconomic factors, limitations the elderly are faced with in their twelve activities of daily living significantly affect the eligibility for the Korean Long-term Care Insurance Scheme. This means that limitations in daily living activities are more critical than common diseases among the elderly are to the eligibility for the Korean Long-term Care Insurance Scheme. Bathing and toileting problems have been found to be the most important factor affecting the eligibility for the insurance scheme, followed by eating, dressing and moving around inside the house. Moreover, the choices of whether to use long-term care and which to use between home care and institutional care are found to be significantly influenced by health status and various socioeconomic factors of the elderly. In particular, those with more limitations in daily living activities and the female elderly are more likely to use long-term care and institutional care rather than home care. As for home care users, those living alone or with adult children and those with monthly household income of more than 500,000 won are more likely to use home care. Most importantly, even when the monthly household income of the elderly is controlled, the elderly recipients of the National Basic Living Security, who are not charged for long-term care, are more likely to choose home care. This implies that price as well as income is a critical factor for the decision to use long-term care. Further study on the duration of long-term care use will surely enhance the long-term care policy, when panel data is available for simultaneous analysis of the likelihood of long-term care use and its use duration.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.85-102
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• 2018

Objectives: In order to cope with the quality and the substantiality issues in long-term care for the elderly, we should have a wider view of long-term system components based on the understanding of health care organizations, management services, support for care providers and beneficiaries, education of the workforce, and management of finance and resources. Methods: For resolving the issues raised and offering guidance in the area of long-term care, we reviewed 20 reports and documents of the government and government-related institutions using the Internet home pages of the Australian government and the related organizations in the health care sector. These organizations are undergoing a huge system reform to implement consumer-directed care since 2015, in the areas of service, resources, finances, organization, and management. Results and conclusions: The study outcomes can have some implications for the long-term care system in Korea based on the differences in the service components. The results can provide basic information for improving the long-term care service, and can have several other implications for long-term care in Korea.