Implementation of Home Health Care Nursing Education in Japan

In Japan, the focus of health care has been shifted from hospital-based to community-based care. In nursing fields, home health care nursing is expected to well implemented. Although our society is facing a problem of care of the elderly population, the target patients of home health care nursing are children to the elderly. In home health care nursing education, geriatric nursing focuses on various nursing care techniques in home care settings rather than management skills and leadership. In 1997, the new home health care nursing curriculum was mandated by a committee appointed by the Japanese Government. How have nursing junior colleges incorporated the new curriculum? We expected that the new curriculum might cause changes in nursing lectures and clinical practicum, so-far run on the 3-year associate degree program in Japanese national junior colleges of nursing. We analyzed the results of the survey, with a discussion of current problems: Among 17 junior colleges studied, 4 (23.5%) had incorporated the new curriculum, and the rest had made a plan of implementation. The methods of implementations varied among the colleges probably due to the lack of a common definition. Among many problems recognized, the main were: i) shortage of faculty members who can be in charge, ii) problems related with clinical sites, iii) absence of common background among the faculty members and iv) limitation of lecture hours. Training of faculty members in this fields was an immediate concern to the colleges.