LTCcovid Country Profile – Printable Version
1.00. Brief overview of the Long-Term Care system
The public Long-Term Care system in Taiwan has been in development since the 1990s. Although a social insurance system was planned, public LTC in Taiwan is funded through taxes. In 2017 the government launched LTC 2.0, a new policy aiming to develop a universal LTC system with an emphasis on home and community-based care and better integrated with the health care system, particularly with primary preventive care and home-based hospital care following hospital discharge (Hsu and Chen, 2019).
References:
Hsu HC and Chen CF (2019) LTC 2.0: The 2017 reform of home- and community-based long-term care in Taiwan. Health Policy 123:10, 912-916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2019.08.004
Update for: Taiwan, RoC Last updated: March 2nd, 2023 Contributors: Adelina Comas-Herrera |
1.09. Community-based care infrastructure
The 2017 Long-Term Care 2.0 reform introduced a Community-Integrated Care system. This was to be organised as a so-called ABC network, governed by local governments, where “A” is a community integration service centre (compared to an LTC flagship store), which is responsible for developing services in their area and for linking other services within a 30 minutes transportation window, “A” centres are also tasked with education, information and education. “B” are “composited service centres” (compared to an LTC speical care store) which provide major community-based services and are tasked with increasing quantiy and utilisation of services as well as helping “C” develop services. “C” are “Alley LTC stop” (compared to LTC grocery stores), with the remit of providing convenient care and temporary respite care, deliver preventative activities adn provide lunch clubs or meals on wheels. All “C” centres whould be within walking distance of users. There have been some ammendments to his original plan and reported tensions between the different types of centres (with B centres being allowed to set up with A centres) (Hsu and Chen, 2019).
The Health and Community-Based Services (HCBS) included in LTC 2.0 are home care serivces (including personal hygiene, transfers and housework), respite care, assistive devices and home modifications, tranportation and community-based services (such as day care and meals).
Another important aspect of the 2017 LTC 2.0 reform was a focus on reablement, giving care recipients who can benefit from reablement goal-oriented care plans to enhance the participation of care recipients in meaningful daily activities. A study found that care recipients with low care nees had greater potential to improve their physical function in Activities of Daily Living using reablement services and that both individuals with low and high care needs, home-based personal care supported improvement in Activities of Daily Living and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (Yu et al., 2022).
References:
Hsu HC and Chen CF (2019) LTC 2.0: The 2017 reform of home- and community-based long-term care in Taiwan. Health Policy 123:10, 912-916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2019.08.004
, , , & (2022). Relationships between reablement-embedded home- and community-based service use patterns and functional improvement among older adults in Taiwan. Health & Social Care in the Community, 30, e4321– e4331. https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13825
Update for: Taiwan, RoC Last updated: March 2nd, 2023 Contributors: Adelina Comas-Herrera |