Rep. Shim Jae-chul |
By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter
Shim Jae-chul, an English teacher-turned legislator, has proposed a bill that calls for setting up a single international accreditation system for Korean hospitals.
"Korea needs an accreditation system that patients at home and abroad can trust, which can be used to find the most suitable hospital for their illness," Shim told The Korea Times Thursday, the same day he submitted the bill to the National Assembly.
Under the current law, general hospitals and clinics with 300 beds or more are required to participate in hospital evaluation programs as part of plans to improve the quality of the country's medical services.
However, they have not been much use as they lack credibility and their assessment reports have been too ambiguous and general, Shim said.
"Even an accreditation system, which has been supervised by the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs and executed by the Korean Hospital Association, has turned out to be good for nothing as it failed to show which hospital offers the best treatment for a particular disease," he said.
An excessive number of accreditation bodies, run by the government, associations, as well as academies, have been established, resulting only in a financial burden on the government and a work overload at hospitals, he added.
The 52-year-old Grand National Party lawmaker said he expects the new patient-friendly system to be launched this year to replace or integrate the numerous "ineffective" domestic accreditation programs.
Shim is widely known as one of the most active legislators on medical issues. He had a major traffic accident in 1993, which permanently damaged one of his legs.
"Only the hospitals that want to certify their medical skills will participate in the accreditation program, which, I expect, will be run by the government for the first few years," Shim said.
"Hospitals will also be allowed to receive accreditations in certain areas that they are proficient in."
Shim pointed out that an independent organization will eventually take over the state-initiated program once it gains trust among patients.
He expressed hope that the homegrown program will help local hospitals promote medical skills without having to pay a hefty amount of money to gain international accreditation, from organizations such as the Joint Commission International (JCI).
"The JCI is an expensive accreditation system popular in the United States and suitable for large hospitals," Shim said. "The JCI might be a must to those hospitals targeting Americans, but it is not widely recognized in countries, such as Japan, Europe, Middle Eastern nations and Russia."
Shim said the new indigenous accreditation system will contribute to providing accurate information about Korean hospitals in the future.
"Korea's advanced medical technologies and outstanding human resources are undervalued abroad," Shim said. "Perhaps Korea has focused too much on telling the world how good our medical industry is without properly providing the information that foreigners want to look at before making a decision."
The legislator has also proposed a bill that establishes an arbitration board to deal with medical disputes and a mechanism to compensate patients when the cause of any accident is unclear.
The Korean medical industry saw 27,480 foreign patients in 2008 and the number is expected to jump to 140,000 by 2015, according to the ministry.
In an effort to give the industry a boost, the government passed a bill last May that allows hospitals to launch marketing campaigns or pay commissions to agencies to bring in more patients from overseas.
leeth@koreatimes.co.kr
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yistory@koreatimes.co.kr
