Gwangju Seo-gu Wins 'Excellence Award' for Home Medical Care Pilot Project

Published 24 Nov.2021 13:02(KST)

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Shin Dong-ho] Seo-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City (Mayor Seo Dae-seok) announced on the 24th that it won the ‘Grand Prize’ in the Home Medical Care Pilot Project Institution category at the Medical Aid Case Management Project Excellence Contest.

The ‘Home Medical Care Pilot Project’ is an integrated service provided as part of the community integrated care project. It encourages discharge of medical aid recipients who have been hospitalized long-term but have low medical necessity, enabling them to maintain stable home care by providing medical care, meals, and mobility support at their own homes.

This contest received a total of 51 submissions nationwide, with 16 selected (10 individual and 6 institutional entries).

Since 2019, Seo-gu has proactively conducted the Home Medical Care Pilot Project and won the grand prize in the institutional category based on exemplary cases carried out so far.

Seo-gu also gained opportunities to widely promote its home medical care project to national support institutions through the awarding of the Minister’s Commendation and the publication of an excellence casebook.

Additionally, it contributes to welfare improvement and residents’ health promotion by alleviating personal burdens through various medical supports for the medically vulnerable groups within the district.

In particular, Seo-gu has been recognized as a model institution through active promotion of customized case management to improve self-health management ability of medical aid recipients and reduce costs, as well as the home medical care project for those discharged after long-term hospitalization, leading to benchmarking by other local governments.

In fact, an analysis of the average monthly medical expenses for 36 home medical aid recipients for six months before and after discharge showed a reduction from 2.68 million KRW per recipient before discharge to 1.01 million KRW after discharge, resulting in an average monthly medical aid budget saving of 1.67 million KRW (-62.49%).

Seo Dae-seok, Mayor of Seo-gu, said, “Seo-gu is creating the happiest city for the elderly through various customized supports,” adding, “We will do our best to actively promote the Home Medical Care Pilot Project in connection with the community integrated care project so that medical aid recipients can receive tailored care at home instead of hospitals and improve their quality of life.”