Adjusting Residency Quotas According to Demand... Han Deok-su "Improving Medical System"

Meeting on 'Healthcare System Regulatory Innovation Plan' on the 19th

Han Duck-soo, Prime Minister, speaking about reducing regional medical disparities
Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Song Seung-seop] The government will adjust the number of residents (residents) according to medical demand to solve the problem of medical imbalance. Policies to revitalize public and regional hospitals will also be promoted.

On the 19th, Prime Minister Han Deok-su visited Incheon Medical Center and held a meeting on the ‘Medical System Regulatory Innovation Plan,’ finalizing and announcing the detailed tasks of regulatory innovation. This visit was made to comfort vulnerable inpatients and reduce medical disparities between regions ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.

Regulatory improvements are mainly made in three areas: ‘Improvement of medical workforce training and supply,’ ‘Strengthening health and medical capabilities,’ and ‘Rational reform of the medical fee system.’ A total of seven tasks were selected. The areas and tasks were decided through communication between the Regulatory Innovation Promotion Team of the Office for Government Policy Coordination and medical institutions, related academic societies, and local governments since August last year.

According to the plan, the government will calculate the appropriate number of specialists by specialty and set the number of residents considering the necessity of fostering essential specialties. The allocation criteria for residents by training hospital will also be prepared by comprehensively reviewing the supply and demand situation of specialists by region and the training environment for residents.

In addition, a system will be established to manage and supervise career support personnel within hospitals. Currently, this is not institutionalized and operates in the form of dedicated nurses. Once guidelines are prepared, medical institutions will operate them in the form of their own internal guidelines.

A joint training system linking national university hospitals and regional medical centers within the same area or region will also be created to enable smooth training education centered on local areas. Currently, most training hospitals are national university hospitals or tertiary general hospitals, and there have been many criticisms about the lack of public clinical experience in local communities. Accordingly, infrastructure will be prepared so that regional medical centers can be designated as training hospitals for interns and residents.

Furthermore, if retired doctors wish to work at regional public medical institutions, linkage plans will be provided, and the public health scholarship system will be revitalized. To strengthen the foundation of essential medical care, the introduction of public policy fees for avoidance fields such as cerebrovascular diseases and demand-decreasing fields such as pediatrics and obstetrics will be promoted.

Prime Minister Han emphasized, “Related ministries should actively strive to minimize vulnerable medical groups who cannot receive timely treatment due to lack of medical infrastructure,” and added, “The government will continue to discover and improve regulations deeply rooted in the medical system to alleviate medically vulnerable areas and strengthen essential medical care.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.