‘Concerned about Korea’s stroke treatment system’

Recruiting specialists should be top priority, or the system may collapse

Entering a super-aged society, 340,000 stroke patients expected in 2050 in Korea

Raising the need for system improvements such as securing specialized stroke treatment personnel and a compensation system

(from the left) Dr.

 

Jae-Kwan Cha (Director, Quality Improvement Committee, KSS), Hee-Joon Bae (President, KSS), Kyung Bok Lee (Director, Policy Making Committee, KSS),

The government announced the initiation of a pilot project to lay the foundation for a stroke care system, but its lack of content is being criticized by the academic society.

 

Academics have suggested that securing human resources, establishing a compensation system, and revising the stroke disease group classification system should be made first for the establishment of any system.

 

The Korean Stroke Society held a press conference at the Westing Chosun Hotel in Seoul on the 14th to explain its views.

 

At the conference, Dr.

 

Tae-jung Kim, Director of the Public Relations Committee (Department of Neurology, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital), pointed out that the number of stroke cases will continue to increase in Korea as the nation has become a super-aged society, but the lack of personnel for its care has not been addressed still.

 

Kim said, “There are still many weak spots in stroke care in Korea.

 

In one area where half of all stroke patients live, final stroke treatments such as intravenous thrombolysis and intra-arterial thrombectomy are not available.” According to Statistics Korea, Korea will enter the super-aged society later this year.

 

By 2050, the country is expected to have about 20 million people aged 65 and older.

 

Last year, 180,000 people had strokes, and the number is expected to soar to 340,000 by 2050 with population aging.

 

Tae-Jung Kim, (Director, Public Relations Committee)

Kim explained, "Currently, there are only 209 stroke specialists available in tertiary and university hospitals.

 

In some regional cardiocerebrovascular disease centers, one specialist treats 400 to 500 stroke patients.” The government has announced that it will promote the "Cardiocerebrovascular Disease Problem-Solving Treatment Cooperation Network Health Insurance Pilot Project," a network-building and support project to encourage active communication and decision-making among medical institutions and specialists for stroke patients, and the "Essential Medical Care Package" to solve local essential medical care issues.

 

More specifically, the government proposed policies to improve the training environment and expand essential medical care and personnel.

 

However, the KSS stressed that before such measures, the number of on-call doctors and policy fee categories should be increased, and regional centers be expanded.

 

Dr.

 

Jae-Kwan Cha, Director of the Quality Improvement Committee at KSS (Department of Neurology, Dong-a Univ.

 

Hospital), said, “The current number of stroke specialists falls short of the minimum number of people required to operate a stable medical system.

 

The treatment system will collapse when we enter a super-aged society with the current level of specialists." "There are about 86 specialists in 74 university hospitals, but the number of specialists needs to be increased to 160 to ensure a stable personnel pool.

 

If the government wants to build a specialist-centered medical care system, increasing the number of neurology specialists related to essential medical care should be a priority." Dr.Kyung Bok Lee, Director of the Policy Making Committee at KSS criticized how Korea currently classifies stroke as a general medical condition category and emphasized the need to revise it and move it to a specialized medical condition category.

 

Lee said, “It's no secret that stroke is an essential critical emergency disease.

 

Stroke is a severe condition.

 

Nearly 80% of patients suffer from sequelae and need to be treated promptly.

 

Currently, only a small proportion of stroke patients who undergo surgery or procedures are categorized as specialty care patients.” "This is why we need to classify stroke as a specialty disease to ensure that it is not neglected at tertiary hospitals that treat most of the acute stroke patients are often treated."