Community-Based Home Healthcare Project for Korean Older Adults

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to identify the effects of community-based home healthcare projects that influence service performances with regard to Korean national long-term care insurance services in older adults. METHODS The project's applicants were 18 operational agencies in national long-term care institutions in Korea, and participants were care recipients (n = 2263) registered in long-term care institutions. We applied our healthcare system to the recruited participants for a 3-month period from October 2012 to December 2012. We measured the community-based home healthcare services such as long-term care, health and medical service, and welfare and leisure service prior to and after applying the community-based home healthcare system. RESULTS After the implementation of community-based home healthcare project, all community-based home healthcare services showed an increase than prior to the project implementation. The nutrition management service was the most increased and its increase rate was 628.6%. A comparison between the long-term care insurance beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries showed that health and medical services' increase rate of nonbeneficiaries was significantly higher than beneficiaries (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION Our community-based home healthcare project might improve the service implementation for older adults and there was a difference in the increase rate of health and medical services between Korean national long-term care insurance beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries.