District marks one year of integrated care with 8 specialized programs and health-welfare links; operational review set for Wednesday
Gangnam-gu will share the results of its first year running an integrated care system and push to strengthen a community-centered care network.
Next year, the district plans to elevate its dedicated team to a full division — to be called the Integrated Care Division — to expand the program's organizational foundation.
Gangnam-gu announced it will hold an "Integrated Care One-Year Operational Review" at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Gangnam District Community Center's main auditorium, with about 350 residents and partner organization representatives in attendance.
The integrated care program is designed to help elderly residents and people with disabilities receive coordinated health, medical and daily-life support in their own homes, rather than relying on hospitals or residential facilities.
The district enacted a related ordinance in December last year and established a dedicated integrated care team in January this year. In March, aligned with the enforcement of the Care Integration Support Act, it launched full operations centered on the 22 neighborhood community centers and the Gangnam Medical Care Center under the district's public health center.
Over the past year, the district has worked with local partner organizations — including the National Health Insurance Service, medical institutions and welfare centers — to identify residents falling through gaps in the care system and connect them with services tailored to their individual circumstances.
Gangnam-gu has particularly focused on closing gaps between medical and care services through eight specialized programs developed to reflect the district's own characteristics.
The programs cover daily-life care including housekeeping and meal support, subsidies for out-of-pocket costs for home medical visits, home-based medication management, home exercise, home cognitive care, home hospice for terminal cancer patients, a smart senior housing initiative, health promotion through the integrated care support center, and community reintegration for discharged hospital patients.
The district's public health center has backed these efforts with medical and health services through the Gangnam Medical Care Center, home health management, a dementia support center, a mental health and welfare center, and a healthy-aging center. In recognition of these achievements, the Gangnam-gu Public Health Center was named one of Seoul's "2026 Outstanding Integrated Care Institutions" by the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Citizen Health Bureau on Wednesday.
The review event will share progress and operational results from the past year and present real-world integrated care cases from the field.
Among the cases to be presented is one in which an elderly resident who struggled to live independently after a hospital discharge was connected with home medical visits, housekeeping and meal support, and home environment improvements — allowing the person to recover daily life at home without entering a nursing facility.
The district plans to upgrade the integrated care team to a full division in January next year, strengthening its dedicated organization and operational framework. The aim is to organically link medical, welfare and daily-life services so that continuous care can be provided within the community.
"The integrated care work we have carried out over the past year is a meaningful first step toward a community that looks after neighbors in need together," Gangnam-gu District Mayor Kim Hyun-ki said. "We will continue to build a more comprehensive Gangnam-style care system so that elderly residents and people with disabilities can all live healthy lives in the places they call home."
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