ABSTRACT

As a coping strategy for the population aging in Korea, it is necessary to build the comprehensive caresystem which can cover medical and/or health care as well as welfare at the same time. To build thesystem should be based on the systematic organization of integration frameworks (e.g., horizontal andvertical integration, linkage and coordination, and full integration) and on the region’s own distinctcharacteristics. Linkage and integration, common perceiving and sharing the integration itself and its objective should be required at the initial stage of building the system. After reviewing the principalcharacteristics of the system for the main advanced countries, the targets, types, and levels of integrationfor the system were examined and several directions of developing the system were suggested in thisarticle. Some major instances of the directions would be to revise both National Health Insurance andSenior Long-Term Care Insurance Acts, to integrate training or educational program for personnels workingat the medical, health, or welfare profession as well as to improve their expertise, to encourage thecommunity dwellers’ participation and/or inclusion in the integration process, and so on.