Developing a Cost-effective Home Care Management Support System for Small Nursing Homes in Taiwan

摘要

Home care is important in Taiwan but most of the institutes are small and cannot afford computerization.We develop a support system based on InterRAI case management system using Excel VBA which is the most "free" application in institutes.The prototype system shows promising. The rate of aging population in Taiwan has risen to be the second highest in the world. 80% of the aged can be cared at home. The systematic long-term care was first introduced in Taiwan in 1998 and up to now, only 37.5% of institutes were computerized [1]. Most of the un-computerized institutes are small in terms of scale and lack of sufficient resources. Since case management is a care delivery model designed to coordinate and manage patient care across the continuum of health care systems which is important in long-term care, any computerization should be done accordingly. The objective of this study is to build an economic but case-management-oriented home care management support system for the small home care institutes.