Home Care System and Challenges for Municipalities Under the Long Term Care Insurance

2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 13672443
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 基礎・地域看護学
• Research Institution: GUNMA UNIVERSITY
• Principal Investigator: OHNO Ayako Gunma University, School of Medicine, Professor, 医学部, 教授 (00251132)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): NUMATA Kayo Gunma University, School of Medicine, Research Associate, 医学部, 助手 (40344931) ; NAGAOKA Rie Gunma University, School of Medicine, Research Associate, 医学部, 助手 (50323358) ; SATO Yumi Gunma University, School of Medicine, Associate Professor, 医学部, 助教授 (80235415) ; KOBAYASHI Ayumi Gunma Paz Junior College Of Nursing, Associate Professor, 地域看護学専攻科, 講師 (20323347) ; YAJIMA Masae Gunma Paz Junior College Of Nursing, Associate Professor, 地域看護学専攻科, 助教授 (40310247)
• Project Period (FY): 2001 – 2002
• Keywords: Long Term Care Insurance / Home Care System / Municipalities

Research Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify challenges for municipalities to establish home care system under the long-term care insurance.
The authors conducted the preliminary survey in a town in Gunma Prefecture in 2001 to find the situation of service utilization and provision as well as the difficulties clients and providers of the service faced. The survey resulted in 10 challenges the municipalities should undertake "to guarantee quality of home care services".
In 2002, the main survey was conducted by mailing questionnaire to home care public health nurses of 1608 municipalities (50% of the cities and towns in Japan). The purpose was to find the priorities of activities in the municipalities we surveyed. It is to validate 10 challenges we had identified in the previous year. The ten challenges are : (1) Level of citizens' knowledge on care insurance ; (2) Provision of information about local resources to the citizens ; (3) Comments from the service users ; (4) Quality improvement of the surveyors ; (5) Quality improvement of the care support staffs ; (6) Quality improvement of the home care service providers ; (7) Maintenance of the service volume ; (8) Development of systems for service adjustment ; (9) Support of family caregivers ; and (10) support of clients whose needs cannot be satisfied under the current system. Three hundred and ninety-two municipalities responded the survey(24.4%), proving the validity of ten challenges and revealing 7 to 12 factors affecting each challenge.