Resident-Centered Community Participatory Service Model – Building a Sustainable Integrated Delivery System

Taiwan National Health Insurance (NHI) program shields 23 million citizens from financial risk in face of illness with a low cost and yet very comprehensive benefit coverage plan, whose success has been widely publicized in the international media and well discussed by world-wide health experts. However, access to service in the rural areas in the mountains and remote islands has been one of the most daunting challenges that NHI encountered since the inception of the program. Literature and government statistics up to date has centered more on the increase in service volume rendered than other aspects of the health system, such as issues of health inequality and the appropriateness of the service model. To address the issues abovementioned, we aim to conduct the following research in three years: (1) Exploiting survey data from 2001, 2005 and 2009 Health Interview Surveys to examine the trend in the distribution of health inequality in the rural areas through the construction of concentration index of health; (2) Adopting the business model proposed by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) to construct a sustainable resident-centered community participatory service model for the residents in Fushing Township, whose cost structure will be analyzed through the application of Activity-Based Costing method. The research findings are expected to address the gap in academic literature and provide valuable policy references not only for Taiwan but also for the developing countries which are in need for service models for the underserved areas. In summary, the three major contributions expected upon completion of this study are that: (1) it provides understanding of the change in health inequality in the rural areas over the years; (2) it systematically analyzes the allocation and utilization of resources through costing out activities and programs; (3) it translates business principles and practices into the domain of public health and community health and efficiency is expected to achieve through such an application.

Project ID:PF10301-0612
External Project ID:NSC102-2410-H182-007-SS3