• 농촌의학ㆍ지역보건
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• 제26권1호
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• pp.19-35
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• 2001

보건소의 의약분업 시행에 따른 업무변화와 업무 개선방안에 대해 조사 분석하여 보건소의 기능 및 역할 재정립에 필요한 기초자료를 얻고자 2001년 4월과 5월에 경상북도내 25개 보건소와 대구광역시 6개 보건소의 소장 또는 과장에게 의약분업 실시 전후의 보건소 업무 및 진료실적변화 정도를 조사하였고, 이와 함께 보건소 공무원 221명에게 의약분업에 따른 보건소 업무개선방안에 대해 설문 조사하였다. 31개 대상 보건소 가운데 77.4%인 24개 보건소가 주민진료편의 조치를 취하였다고 하였다. 주민 진료편의 조치를 한 보건소의 조치내용으로 약국배치도마련(73.9%), 인테리어 개선(39.1%), 전자처방전달시스템 도입(34.8%) 순이었다. 의약분업 실시 후 의사는 대상 보건소의 3.2%에서 감소하였다. 의약분업에 따라 월평균 진료건수는 대상 보건소의 58.1%에서 감소하였다고 하였고, 조제건수는 96.4%, 총진료비는 80.6%, 본인부담금은 80.6%, 약품구입비는 96.7%의 보건소에서 감소하였다고 하였다. 의약분업 실시 이후 진료부문에 비해 보건사업 부문의 비중은 54.2%의 보건소에서 증가하였다고 하였다. 의약분업 전후이 분기별 진료실적을 분석한 결과 진료실인원은 의약분업이전과 비교하여 의약분업 이후에 감소하였고, 진료연인원은 군보건소와 보건의료원은 감소하였으며, 시화 구보건소는 감소했다가 점차 증가하고 있다. 조제건수 총진료비 본인부담금 약품구입비는 크게 감소하였다. 보건소 공무원들은 의약분업 실시 이후 진료부문의 기능에 대해서는 57.6%가 축소시켜야 한다고 하였고, 보건소에서 우선적으로 개선해야 할 부분으로는 보건사업내용 개발(62.4%), 인력재배치(51.6%), 사업우선순위 결정(48.4%), 조직개편(36.2%), 진료서비스의 질 향상(32.1%), 예산재배치(23.1%) 순으로 응답하였다. 보건소의 이미지를 개선하기 위해서는 지역주민건강정보관리 강화(60.7%)가 가장 시급하다고 하였으며 홍보를 통한 보건소의 이용 확대(15.8%), 보건소 공무원의 친절(15.3%), 건강상담요원 배치(8.2%) 순이었다. 의약분업 실시 이후 바람직한 보건소 역할 설정을 위하여 보건소 전체 업무 영역에 대해 의약분업 이전과 이후에 상대비중을 매기도록 한 결과 25개 세부영역 중 일반진료 및 응급진료 영역만 모두 상대비중이 높아졌다. 의약분업 이후 보건소가 중점을 두어야 할 우선 순위 5위까지의 업무영역은 순서대로 예방접종, 건강증진, 모자보건, 급만성전염병, 지역보건의료계획 이었다. 향후 보건소가 바람직한 공공보건의료조직으로 기능 및 역할을 재정립하기 위해서는 의약분업이라는 중대한 보건의료환경변화를 계기로 진료부문의 기능은 축소하되 노후시설 장비의 개선, 진료방식의 다양화, 건강정보관리 강화 등 진료서비스의 내용과 질에 있어서는 강화하는 방향으로 나아가야 할 것이다. 또한 인력재배치 및 조직개편과 함께 다양한 보건사업의 개발과 지역특성에 맞는 사업우선순위에 의해 예방접조, 건강증진, 모자보건, 급 만성전염병, 지역보건의료계획 수립, 구강보건, 만성퇴행성질환 등 지역주민의 건강증진 질병예방 기능을 강화하되 지역특성(대도시, 중소도시, 농어촌)에 맞게 예방위주의 건강 증진업무와 환자 진료업무의 비중을 차별화 시키는 방향으로 개선해 나가야 할 것이다.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제20권1호
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• pp.165-203
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• 1987

This project was a service-cum-research effort with a quasi-experimental study design to examine the health benefits of an integrated Family Planning (FP)/Maternal & Child health (MCH) Service approach that provides crucial factors missing in the present on-going programs. The specific objectives were: 1) To test the effectiveness of trained nurse/midwives (MW) assigned as change agents in the Health Sub-Center (HSC) to bring about the changes in the eight FP/MCH indicators, namely; (i)FP/MCH contacts between field workers and their clients (ii) the use of effective FP methods, (iii) the inter-birth interval and/or open interval, (iv) prenatal care by medically qualified personnel, (v) medically supervised deliveries, (vi) the rate of induced abortion, (vii) maternal and infant morbidity, and (viii) preinatal & infant mortality. 2) To measure the integrative linkage (contacts) between MW & HSC workers and between HSC and clients. 3) To examine the organizational or administrative factors influencing integrative linkage between health workers. Study design; The above objectives called for quasi-experimental design setting up a study and control area with and without a midwife. An active intervention program (FP/MCH minimum 'package' program) was conducted for a 2 year period from June 1982-July 1984 in Seosan County and 'before and after' surveys were conducted to measure the change. Service input; This study was undertaken by the Soonchunhyang University in collaboration with WHO. After a baseline survery in 1981, trained nurses/midwives were introduced into two health sub-centers in a rural setting (Seosan county) for a 2 year period from 1982 to 1984. A major service input was the establishment of midwifery services in the existing health delivery system with emphasis on nurse/midwife's role as the link between health workers (nurse aids) and village health workers, and the referral of risk patients to the private physician (OBGY specialist). An evaluation survey was made in August 1984 to assess the effectiveness of this alternative integrated approach in the study areas in comparison with the control area which had normal government services. Method of evaluation; a. In this study, the primary objective was first to examine to what extent the FP/MCH package program brought about changes in the pre-determined eight indicators (outcome and impact measures) and the following relationship was first analyzed; b. Nevertheless, this project did not automatically accept the assumption that if two or more activities were integrated, the results would automatically be better than a non-integrated or categorical program. There is a need to assess the 'integration process' itself within the package program. The process of integration was measured in terms of interactive linkages, or the quantity & quality of contacts between workers & clients and among workers. Intergrative linkages were hypothesized to be influenced by organizational factors at the HSC clinic level including HSC goals, sltrurture, authority, leadership style, resources, and personal characteristics of HSC staff. The extent or degree of integration, as measured by the intensity of integrative linkages, was in turn presumed to influence programme performance. Thus as indicated diagrammatically below, organizational factors constituted the independent variables, integration as the intervening variable and programme performance with respect to family planning and health services as the dependent variable: Concerning organizational factors, however, due to the limited number of HSCs (2 in the study area and 3 in the control area), they were studied by participatory observation of an anthropologist who was independent of the project. In this observation, we examined whether the assumed integration process actually occurred or not. If not, what were the constraints in producing an effective integration process. Summary of Findings; A) Program effects and impact 1. Effects on FP use: During this 2 year action period, FP acceptance increased from 58% in 1981 to 78% in 1984 in both the study and control areas. This increase in both areas was mainly due to the new family planning campaign driven by the Government for the same study period. Therefore, there was no increment of FP acceptance rate due to additional input of MW to the on-going FP program. But in the study area, quality aspects of FP were somewhat improved, having a better continuation rate of IUDs & pills and more use of effective Contraceptive methods in comparison with the control area. 2. Effects of use of MCH services: Between the study and control areas, however, there was a significant difference in maternal and child health care. For example, the coverage of prenatal care was increased from 53% for 1981 birth cohort to 75% for 1984 birth cohort in the study area. In the control area, the same increased from 41% (1981) to 65% (1984). It is noteworthy that almost two thirds of the recent birth cohort received prenatal care even in the control area, indicating that there is a growing demand of MCH care as the size of family norm becomes smaller 3. There has been a substantive increase in delivery care by medical professions in the study area, with an annual increase rate of 10% due to midwives input in the study areas. The project had about two times greater effect on postnatal care (68% vs. 33%) at delivery care(45.2% vs. 26.1%). 4. The study area had better reproductive efficiency (wanted pregancies with FP practice & healthy live births survived by one year old) than the control area, especially among women under 30 (14.1% vs. 9.6%). The proportion of women who preferred the 1st trimester for their first prenatal care rose significantly in the study area as compared to the control area (24% vs 13%). B) Effects on Interactive Linkage 1. This project made a contribution in making several useful steps in the direction of service integration, namely; i) The health workers have become familiar with procedures on how to work together with each other (especially with a midwife) in carrying out their work in FP/MCH and, ii) The health workers have gotten a feeling of the usefulness of family health records (statistical integration) in identifying targets in their own work and their usefulness in caring for family health. 2. On the other hand, because of a lack of required organizational factors, complete linkage was not obtained as the project intended. i) In regards to the government health worker's activities in terms of home visiting there was not much difference between the study & control areas though the MW did more home visiting than Government health workers. ii) In assessing the service performance of MW & health workers, the midwives balanced their workload between 40% FP, 40% MCH & 20% other activities (mainly immunization). However, $85{\sim}90%$ of the services provided by the health workers were other than FP/MCH, mainly for immunizations such as the encephalitis campaign. In the control area, a similar pattern was observed. Over 75% of their service was other than FP/MCH. Therefore, the pattern shows the health workers are a long way from becoming multipurpose workers even though the government is pushing in this direction. 3. Villagers were much more likely to visit the health sub-center clinic in the study area than in the control area (58% vs.31%) and for more combined care (45% vs.23%). C) Organization factors (admistrative integrative issues) 1. When MW (new workers with higher qualification) were introduced to HSC, it was noted that there were conflicts between the existing HSC workers (Nurse aids with less qualification than MW) and the MW for the beginning period of the project. The cause of the conflict was studied by an anthropologist and it was pointed out that these functional integration problems stemmed from the structural inadequacies of the health subcenter organization as indicated below; i) There is still no general consensus about the objectives and goals of the project between the project staff and the existing health workers. ii) There is no formal linkage between the responsibility of each member's job in the health sub-center. iii) There is still little chance for midwives to play a catalytic role or to establish communicative networks between workers in order to link various knowledge and skills to provide better FP/MCH services in the health sub-center. 2. Based on the above findings the project recommended to the County Chief (who has power to control the administrative staff and the technical staff in his county) the following ; i) In order to solve the conflicts between the individual roles and functions in performing health care activities, there must be goals agreed upon by both. ii) The health sub·center must function as an autonomous organization to undertake the integration health project. In order to do that, it is necessary to support administrative considerations, and to establish a communication system for supervision and to control of the health sub-centers. iii) The administrative organization, tentatively, must be organized to bind the health worker's midwive's and director's jobs by an organic relationship in order to achieve the integrative system under the leadership of health sub-center director. After submitting this observation report, there has been better understanding from frequent meetings & communication between HW/MW in FP/MCH work as the program developed. Lessons learned from the Seosan Project (on issues of FP/MCH integration in Korea); 1) A majority or about 80% of the couples are now practicing FP. As indicated by the study, there is a growing demand from clients for the health system to provide more MCH services than FP in order to maintain the achieved small size of family through FP practice. It is fortunate to see that the government is now formulating a MCH policy for the year 2,000 and revising MCH laws and regulations to emphasize more MCH care for achieving a small size family through family planning practice. 2) Goal consensus in FP/MCH shouBd be made among the health workers It administrators, especially to emphasize the need of care of 'wanted' child. But there is a long way to go to realize the 'real' integration of FP into MCH in Korea, unless there is a structural integration FP/MCH because a categorical FP is still first priority to reduce the rate of population growth for economic reasons but not yet for health/welfare reasons in practice. 3) There should be more financial allocation: (i) a midwife should be made available to help to promote the MCH program and coordinate services, (in) there should be a health sub·center director who can provide leadership training for managing the integrated program. There is a need for 'organizational support', if the decision of integration is made to obtain benefit from both FP & MCH. In other words, costs should be paid equally to both FP/MCH. The integration slogan itself, without the commitment of paying such costs, is powerless to advocate it. 4) Need of management training for middle level health personnel is more acute as the Government has already constructed 90 MCH centers attached to the County Health Center but without adequate manpower, facilities, and guidelines for integrating the work of both FP and MCH. 5) The local government still considers these MCH centers only as delivery centers to take care only of those visiting maternity cases. The MCH center should be a center for the managment of all pregnancies occurring in the community and the promotion of FP with a systematic and effective linkage of resources available in the county such as i.e. Village Health Worker, Community Health Practitioner, Health Sub-center Physicians & Health workers, Doctors and Midwives in MCH center, OBGY Specialists in clinics & hospitals as practiced by the Seosan project at primary health care level.