Countywide : Korean Team Looks at Home Health Care

Ji Hoon Yang and Charlie Bush could not speak the same language, but all barriers between the South Korean nurse and the heart surgery patient melted when Yang tenderly traced the scars on the elderly man’s chest.

Nurses are the same in any country, she seemed to say.

Yang, 51, arrived in Southern California two weeks ago with 27 chief doctors and nurses from provinces throughout South Korea to study home health care in the United States.

On Thursday, the medical team split up and followed several Orange County nurses to their patients’ homes, including Bush’s home in Anaheim.

Hospital Home Health Care, a nonprofit agency that provides acute care for people in their homes, hosted the two-week study tour along with a Fullerton-based private research and consulting company, International Health Development Consortium of Los Angeles.

Since 1990, the agency has hosted foreign visitors “on a much smaller scale,” said Bettie Howell, Home Health’s Fullerton branch vice president. “The Korean group is our largest.”

The two-week program may become a model for others, she said.

Yang and Kyung Sik Lee, president of the consortium, followed Home Health director Kathy Urban as she visited two patients, a Korean American woman in Norwalk and Bush, 85, who was recovering at his home from recent coronary bypass surgery.

Although Yang could not communicate with Bush, she gave him a reassuring smile and took his pulse.

She was able to talk to An Park, 70, who suffered a kidney failure last year. She held the frail woman’s hand while Urban checked her blood pressure and circulation.

“The quality of care here is incredible,” Yang said afterward. “In Korea, they would never think of letting these patients out of the hospitals so soon.

“Here, the care is very comprehensive. The technology and medical supplies and the level of knowledge is very high,” she said.

A fledgling home health care system in Korea has encountered opposition from physicians who fear losing their already light patient loads, Lee said.

“In Korea, it’s very doctor-centered,” Lee said. “They think home cases are only for chronically ill patients. They could hardly think about doing this in Korea.”

The Korean team also attended classes and visited Home Health hospices throughout the county. They also discussed in detail the financial aspect of supporting such a service, which they said will be the biggest obstacle in creating a health care policy that allows for home health care, Lee said.

“Now the home health concept is very clear to us,” Yang said.

But the group’s visit was not all serious business. Last weekend, participants toured Universal Studios and Disneyland. This weekend, they will go on a bus tour to Las Vegas.