가정간호: 위기와 전망

The Korean government introduced Home Care Services System to cut medical cost and make efficient use of limited medical resources because of increasing chronic diseases and the growing population of the elderly. The Korean government established measures to control the use of insurance services by restricting the number of nurse's visits to patient's home and by asking the patients to shoulder the transportation fee of nurses during the visit. Factors such as oversupply of hospital facilities, low price of home care services, high insurance coverage for hospital services and increased nuclear family set up resulted in the limited use of home care nursing services. The introduction of long-term care insurance in 2007 brought the decrease in the number of home care agencies and these agencies are facing a crisis today. The increase in chronic diseases and growing population of the elderly recently resulted in the need to control the high medical cost. Home care services for early discharge patients and chronic-severe disease patients will contribute in the reduction of medical cost at the same time improves the quality of patient's life. To catch up with the demands of the nation, accessibility to home care services should be improved and policies such as the expansion of home care services insurance coverage and promotion of establishing home care agencies should be considered