Gwangju City Completes Foundation for Integrated Care System; Full Service Launch Begins in July

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Om In-yong] Gwangju City is accelerating the establishment of an integrated care system in line with the enforcement of the law on integrated regional care support for medical treatment and long-term care.

The city announced on the 27th that it has established the Integrated Care Dedicated Team, a dedicated organization for integrated care, and enacted related ordinances over the past three-plus months, focusing on preparing operational frameworks and uncovering care blind spots.

To this end, the city has organized the Gwangju City Integrated Support Coordination Body and signed business cooperation agreements with local medical institutions and for linking discharged patients. The city has also completed the selection of service providers for daily living care services including housekeeping, meal, and mobility support as well as residential environment improvement, and plans to officially launch these services starting July 1st.

The city has held integrated support meetings twice monthly and identified 88 crisis households across 8 sessions in total, connecting 59 cases to care services. The city is also working to address welfare blind spots by proactively identifying 27 households through comprehensive big data surveys.

Jung Myeong-gu, head of the city's Welfare Policy Division, said, "We plan to continuously identify crisis households that were previously undetected due to institutional limitations of the existing support system that requires application," and added, "By expanding dedicated personnel in October, we will further strengthen the integrated community care system."