| [ Summary ] |
Specialization of medicine often amounts to fragmented, expensive, and inefficient care for elderly people with multiple complex problems. Integrated care, management, and delivery of health services has become an integral concept in healthcare system in order to provide a continuum of preventive and curative services to the elderly, according to their needs over time and across different levels of the healthcare system. The Japanese dialysis delivery system can be considered a tacit and informal integrated care system, which has led to the world’s best outcome for dialysis patients. An integrated care system is a pressing demand of the aging dialysis population with complex problems. |