Jincheon-gun is establishing itself as an advanced model region for elderly medical care.
Standing tall as a leading local government in ‘integrated support for elderly medical care’
Jincheon-gun has established a leading ‘elderly medical-care system’ and has stood tall as a representative local government preparing for a super-aging society. This is because projects that have been carried out reflecting Jincheon County Governor Song Ki-seop’s military administration philosophy to realize ‘Aging in Jincheon’, which aims to spend a healthy retirement in the place where one lived, are taking root.
As of the end of August 2024, the proportion of the elderly population aged 65 or older in Jincheon-gun is 19%, which is lower than the North Chungcheong average of 21.6% and the second highest in the province after Cheongju City, which recorded 16.4%. Although the aging rate is relatively low, in order to preemptively respond to changes in the community due to low birth rate and aging, the county has participated in the ‘Community Integrated Care Leading Project’ hosted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare since 2019, and in July 2023, ‘ It was selected for the ‘Pilot Project for Integrated Support for Elderly Medical Care’ and has been leading the way in establishing an integrated care system for the elderly.
In particular, as a county-level local government, it is the only one in the country to carry out two pilot projects and is evaluated as having successfully established a rural elderly medical-care model.
Providing on-site medical services in collaboration with private medical institutions
Jincheon-gun’s priority is to provide medical care services to elderly people discharged from medical institutions to prevent readmission and help them return to their daily lives.
To this end, ‘Our Neighborhood Care Station’, which acts as an integrated nursing center, is set up at a general hospital in the district to design the community life of the elderly from the stage of hospitalization to after discharge. Dedicated personnel within the hospital provide counseling to patients and provide integrated care services upon discharge by linking health care services such as individual nursing, medical treatment, nutrition, and rehabilitation to towns and villages, as well as care services necessary for the community, depending on needs.
In addition, we operate and support a home medical center to meet the medical needs of elderly people with limited mobility. A multidisciplinary team consisting of doctors, nurses, and social workers from the home medical center visits patients’ homes and provides medical services. Doctors visit regularly at least once a month, and nurses visit at least twice a month to provide not only medical treatment and medication prescriptions, but also emotional support for patients and guardians and customized health management services.
Mr. A, the guardian of a patient who was diagnosed with long-term care level 1 due to cerebral hemorrhage, high blood pressure, and diabetes, said, “When my mother was discharged from the hospital, replacing the nasogastric tube (nasal cord) was the biggest problem. This is an area that I, as the guardian, cannot do. “But now I have alleviated a lot of my worries by using home medical care.”
Eliminate the divide between ‘welfare-health’ departments and establish an integrated care system with ‘public-private’
Jincheon-gun has succeeded in a groundbreaking transformation of its care system to establish an integrated elderly medical-care support system. In particular, a dedicated team consisting of personnel dedicated to welfare and health was formed to reform the system in which welfare and health services were segmented within the administration. In addition, an ‘integrated support window’ composed of welfare and health personnel is set up in each town/myeon to directly visit the elderly in need of care and comprehensively look into their needs in multiple areas, including health care, nursing, daily life support, and housing.
Based on this, integrated support meetings are held 3 to 5 times a week, and individualized integrated support plans are established and implemented with the participation of experts from counties, towns, villages, public health centers, National Health Insurance Corporation, social welfare facilities, and medical institutions.
In addition, to complement the blind spots in the existing national care system and establish a tight, region-centered care system, a budget of KRW 11.2 billion has been invested from 2019 to present, and △Visiting integrated nursing center ‘Our Neighborhood Care Station’ △Resident care center has been provided to about 7,000 people. Participatory village community care ‘Our Neighborhood Base Care Center’ △’Saenggeojincheon Home Medical Center’ to strengthen on-site medical care services △Support for care services through social farming ‘Saenggeojincheon Care Farm’, including 16 types of regionally specialized projects. We provide our own services.
Elderly health care model benchmarking rush
Jincheon-gun’s integrated medical-care support project for the elderly is showing outstanding results, including winning the grand prize in an evaluation hosted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2023. In particular, Jincheon-gun’s elderly medical-care model is evaluated more highly because most of the pilot project areas are large cities with relatively abundant health, medical, and welfare resources.
Thanks to these achievements, since the pilot project was promoted, about 20 related and institutional groups have been visiting every year, and on Wednesday, August 28, at the headquarters of the National Health Insurance Corporation, Chairman Jeong Gi-seok and the heads of the Daejeon, Sejong and Chungcheong Regional Headquarters, etc. About 20 officials visited Jincheon and discussed the direction of development of elderly medical care policies. Jincheon-gun’s goal is to continue to further solidify the community’s care system and spread the Saenggeo-Jincheon-type integrated care model for the elderly nationwide by 2026.
Jincheon-gun Governor Song Ki-seop said, “The integrated care project for the elderly in preparation for the era of the elderly population of 10 million and the super-aging society in 2025 is a paradigm that must be pursued as a necessity, not an option.” He added, “Jincheon-gun is providing diverse and innovative integrated care in preparation for the super-aging society. “We will fulfill our role as a test bed for business discovery and promotion and continue to innovate so that we can spread this as a nationwide model,” he said.
Queen Reporter Hana Choi Photo Jincheon-gun
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2024-09-30 16:24:34