보건복지부 영문홈페이지

 

Announcement of 「Pediatric Healthcare System Enhancement Plan」

 

□ The Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Republic of Korea (Minister Cho, KyooHong) will be implementing the ‘Pediatric Healthcare System Enhancement Plan’ to provide the best possible medical services to pediatric patients and to eliminate blind spots in pediatric healthcare treatment.

□ As the number of dual-income families increases, many parents often find themselves in a bind when their children have a medical emergency at night or on weekends. In addition, social structural changes such as more women choosing to have babies at an older age are creating additional demands for pediatric healthcare treatment.

 ○ As the number of residents applying to specialize in Pediatrics continues to decline, some large hospitals were even forced to temporarily suspend their pediatric hospitalization care due to a lack of available pediatricians. This is a cause for great concern for parents and children who require access to pediatric healthcare treatment services at all times.

□ The ‘Pediatric Healthcare System Enhancement Plan’ has been developed under the direction of President Yoon Suk Yeol to urgently develop a pediatric healthcare system that can relieve these concerns of parents and children, ensure healthy growth and strengthen essential healthcare for children.

  ○ The Ministry of Health and Welfare will implement the ‘Pediatric Healthcare System Enhancement Plan’ as soon as possible and will continue to update the plan based on the feedback from various stakeholders.

□  In this plan, the Ministry emphasized three key points: first, pediatric healthcare treatment for all emergency and severe cases should be delivered smoothly.

  ○ The Ministry will gradually open four more public medical centers specialized in treating severe pediatric patients -currently there are ten such medical centers around the country; the Ministry will also increase its level of support for these ten existing public medical centers specialized in treating severe pediatric patients.

  ○ The Ministry also plans to increase the level of compensation for pediatric healthcare treatment services and urge tertiary hospitals to strengthen their pediatric healthcare treatment services by following the offered standards including to provide emergency pediatric emergency care 24 hours a day as well as to have a pediatric emergency specialist on duty at all times.

□ Second, given that currently bleak career prospects in Pediatrics have discouraged many residents from signing up for the field, the Ministry will inspire more residents to apply for Pediatrics by adopting measures to brighten up the career prospects in the field.

  ○ The Ministry will enhance stability in the pediatric healthcare environment in tertiary hospitals by imposing stricter requirements for having pediatricians on duty and by increasing the level of compensation for pediatric healthcare services. The Ministry will also take active measures to improve the working environment for residents in Pediatrics.

□ Third, the Ministry is committed to resolving the inconveniences for parents who need pediatric healthcare treatment at night or on weekends.

  ○ The Ministry will provide more support for Moonlight Children Hospitals that offer pediatric ambulatory care at nights and on weekends in an effort to encourage more medical institutions to serve as Moonlight Children Hospitals.

  ○ In addition, by increasing the number of Pediatric Emergency Medical Centers and by improving the evaluation system for emergency medical centers, the Ministry will encourage emergency medical centers to enhance their pediatric healthcare services. Also, the Ministry will soon be launching a 24-hour consultation service so that parents can, before taking their children to hospital, consult professional healthcare workers on their children’s sudden emergency conditions.

□ The following are the details of the ‘Pediatric Healthcare Enhancement Plan’

1. Swiftly Establish a Medical Healthcare System for Severe Pediatric Patients

1)Enhance Access to Specialized Treatment for Severe Pediatric Patients

 ○ Increase the number of Public Medical Centers Specialized for Children and improve the level of support for those centers.

  - The Ministry will consult with fiscal authorities and work on gradually opening up more ‘Public Medical Centers Specialized for Children’ in areas currently without such a center and provide stronger support for facility and equipment acquisition of existing Public Medical Centers Specialized for Children.

  - The Ministry will start a pilot project this year to offer Public Medical Centers Specialized for Children a retroactive payment to compensate for their operational deficit so they can operate freely without having to worry about their financial losses. 
 

 ○ Enhance treatment infrastructure for pediatric cancer patients

  - Establish five regional hub hospitals for pediatric cancer patients in consideration of the number of patients and the distribution of medial resources in the region; build a collaborative network of hospitals in the Seoul Metropolitan Area to enable pediatric cancer patients living in local areas to receive treatment and recover in their place of residence.

2)Enhance Treatment System for Severe Pediatric Patients

 ○ Tertiary Hospitals will enhance their capacity to treat severe pediatric patients

  - The Ministry will improve standards and the preliminary indices used to designate and evaluate Tertiary Hospitals so that they can be pushed to continue to treat severe pediatric patients and acquire more human resources and the hospital beds needed to do this.

  - The Ministry will add new standards on specialists for inpatient care and ICU bed acquisition rate as part of the standards for designating and evaluating Tertiary Hospitals. Also, the related preliminary indices* will be updated to encourage these hospitals to enhance their capacity for treating severe emergency pediatric cases and severe emergency cases.

   * (Ex.) 24 hour pediatric emergency care, pediatric emergency specialist on duty, share of pediatric patients in ER’s, etc.

  - Furthermore, the Ministry will encourage Tertiary Hospitals and General Hospitals to enhance their essential care capacity* including their pediatric healthcare capacity by updating their healthcare quality evaluation standards related to pediatric healthcare and emergency care.

    * (Ex.) Introduce new standards on severe pediatric patient ratio and stricter ICU standards for hospitals with more than 300 beds, etc.

  - In addition, the Ministry will improve compensation for pediatric healthcare services by increasing the hospitalization fee for pediatric ICU’s to help them upgrade the ICU equipment and facilities.

3)Improved Support for Families of Severe Pediatric Patients

 ○ The Ministry will establish plans to support families of severe pediatric patients and expand the level of support for at-home treatment.

  - For severe pediatric patients who are treated at home, the Ministry will start a pilot program enabling these patients to undergo a short-term hospitalization treatment without their families having to stay with them in the hospital, in an effort to alleviate the burden of care on their families.

  - The Ministry will also expand pilot services to send home-care medical staff to pediatric patients houses to offer treatment, nursing, rehabilitation, education and counseling services.

  - The target age for such services will remain at under 18 years of age, but the age group to which such home-care medical services are offered will be increased from under 18 years to under 24 years, and the number of physical and occupational therapies will be increased.

 

2. Eliminate Blind Spots in pediatric healthcare

1)Expand pediatric healthcare at Night and on Holidays

 ○ Increase the number of pediatric hospitals that offer ambulatory care at night and on holidays.

  - Improve the fee system for Moonlight Children Hospitals to support their financial stability

 ○ The Ministry will swiftly launch a ‘Pilot Operation of Pediatric Consultation Centers’ that offer 24-hour counseling services over the phone by medical specialists to help parents deal with the sudden symptoms of their children.

  - The Pediatric Consultation Center will offer consultation services to parents including instructing them in simple ways to treat their children and giving information on nearby hospitals that operate at night and on holidays – such services are expected to help parents to calmly deal with the situation.

2)Enhance Capacity to Treat Emergency Pediatric Cases

 ○ Currently there are eight Pediatric Emergency Medical Centers in Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi, etc. The Ministry plans to open four more Pediatric Emergency Medical Centers in regions that currently lack such a center.

 ○ Existing emergency medical centers will also enhance their pediatric healthcare capacity.

  - The Ministry will manage and inspect emergency medical centers in a way that pushes them to conform to their duty to offer 24-hour pediatric healthcare services; the Ministry will also give more consideration to their pediatric healthcare-related performance* in evaluating the overall performance of emergency medical centers.

    * (Ex.) More weight given to treatment at night/on holidays, low-age(under 6 years) patients, severe patients, etc.

3)Active Pediatric Treatment in Local Communities

 ○ The Ministry will execute a pilot project to encourage regional hospitals and clinics to offer in-depth pediatric healthcare counseling and education services to parents; pediatricians in the region will establish personalized healthcare plans based on the physical conditions of young children(under 36 months) to support their continuous health care and management.

 

3. Secure Pediatric Healthcare Workforce through Fair Compensation

1)Introduce Public Fee ScheduleSystem To Increase Compensation

 ○ As mentioned earlier, the ‘Pilot Project for Retrospective Payment to Compensate for the Deficit of Public Medical Centers Specialized for Children’ will start this year. Based on the result of this pilot project, similar models of compensation for pediatric healthcare will continually be developed and expanded upon.

 ○ In order to enhance compensation for pediatric hospitalization care, the hospitalization fee for newborn units will be improved. Currently, a 30% increased fee is offered for hospitalization care of children younger than 8 years old, and this fee will be extended to 50% for the hospitalization of children under one year old; however, the current level of increased fee will remain unchanged for other age groups(between 1 to 8 years)

 ○ In addition, when specialists for inpatient care treat pediatric patients, the Ministry will consider applying an increased fee for the special age group. 
 

2)Innovation in Healthcare Workforce Management

 ○ The Ministry will meet the demand for pediatric healthcare by building pediatric healthcare providers’ networks within the region including a collaborative treatment network between pediatric cancer specialists.

 ○ The Ministry plans to support hospitals to accommodate diverse forms of employment for medical specialists in consideration of their increasing desire for a better work-life balance and their childcare-related responsibilities; the Ministry will also encourage hospitals to employ more medical specialists by reflecting their level of efforts to do so in various designation and evaluation standards of hospitals.

 
3)Support for Development of Adequate Healthcare Workforce

 ○ To improve the working environment for residents, the Ministry will review in detail their working conditions and the future prospects in the supply and demand for the healthcare workforce and introduce measures to improve their working conditions such as a reduction of long working hours, etc.

 ○ Last but not least, the Ministry will talk with the medical community to resolve the shortage of healthcare workforce in essential medical fields such as Pediatrics.

    * Discussion between the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Korean Medical Association, and Medical Issue Council started on Jan. 16th, 2023

 ○ Minister Cho, KyooHong of the Ministry of Health and Welfare said, “Strengthening the foundation of pediatric healthcare is the best investment for our children who will be the backbone of the future of our nation.”

 ○ He added, “Our ministry will make thorough efforts to improve our pediatric healthcare system and continue to adopt additional measures to enhance essential healthcare system that directly impact the lives of our people.”