After the Community Integrated Care Support Act took full effect in 2026, the demands coming from the regions gathered around how to attach medical care rather than around increasing the volume of services. Over the five days from May 18 to May 22, a private-sector network was launched in Incheon, and in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, an inter-agency agreement targeting discharged patients was signed. In South Gyeongsang Province, the nursing profession sat down with candidates for the local elections to discuss care policy, and the Population Policy Division of Gyeongju City visited care sites in Gimcheon to look at how they are run.
Incheon's move is the most concrete. The Incheon Regional Integrated Care Network announced its launch on May 20 at the Incheon Social Economy Support Center in Jemulpo Smart Town. About 70 people gathered at the launch ceremony, and the participating organizations and agencies number about 40. Six strands sat at one table: health care, housing, the social and solidarity economy, everyday care, village communities, and cooperating agencies.
Running through the list of 10 policy tasks they put forward, medical care is embedded throughout. A proposal that teams made up of several professions together handle assessment and determination, and a demand to introduce an "Incheon-style family doctor system," were placed near the top. Items on setting up an integrated care support center in every eup, myeon and dong, and on building a home-completion system in which care is finished at home without going to a hospital, were also included. The list goes on to a training system for care managers and health care workers, a pilot opening of a "halfway house" as integrated care shared housing, and a plan to turn senior centers into care hubs.
The same week in Yeoju, an agreement came out focused on the moment a patient walks out of the hospital door. Four organizations, the Yeoju Senior Welfare Center, the Silleuk Senior Welfare Center, the Lee Jin-hee Happiness Sharing Home Care Center, and the Chaeum Home Care Center, agreed on May 18 to jointly provide short-term intensive services for discharged patients. The agreement covers assistance with daily living, help with housework and emotional support, accompaniment to hospital and outside appointments, and connection to resources available in the community.
The few weeks right after discharge are the period that decides between recovery and readmission. If no one is attached during this stretch, the surgery can succeed while daily life falls apart. That is the point the Yeoju agreement takes aim at. The number of people covered, the operating period, and the allocation of funds remain tasks outside the text of the agreement.
Experience in other countries shows that tying care and medicine into one piece takes a long time. Britain, building on the 1942 Beveridge Report, set up the Ministry of National Insurance in 1944, then created the National Insurance Act and the National Health Service Act in 1946 and the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act and the National Assistance Act in 1948 in turn. Even so, Southern Cross, the largest nursing home operator with 38,719 beds in 2011, collapsed, and Britain redrew the system through the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 and the Care Act of 2014 so that the CQC at the center supervises health care and social care together while local governments watch over regional markets.
Japan first raised the term community-based integrated care system in the 2003 report of the Study Group on Care for Older People. It took more than 10 years for the concept to move into law, and when the Comprehensive Act on Medical Care and Long-Term Care was created in 2014, 19 laws including the Medical Care Act were revised at once. That means tying medical care, long-term care, prevention, housing and living support into a single system required touching several laws at the same time. It is also a record that this was not something a single ministry program could do.
This is a period when care pledges are pouring out ahead of the local elections. The Incheon network said it would continue with ordinance revision, solidarity on policy responses, and public-private cooperation after the launch ceremony. How far Incheon City will accept the 10 tasks, and with which medical institutions and on what terms the "Incheon-style family doctor system" will operate, have not been decided. How quickly those answers come will change the shape of integrated care in its first year.
When an older person who has finished discharge procedures arrives at the front door of home, whether there is someone to open the door. What the roughly 40 organizations in Incheon and the four agencies in Yeoju are each trying to answer in their own way is that scene. Ordinances and budgets come after it.
