Abstract
The proportion and role of public sector in health care industry is very small in Korea. Asymmetric distribution of health care resources is one of the major health care concerns. This issue is so important that it raises a question of accessibility, availability, continuity of care and equity of rural area people's health care utilization. To solve these problems and to satisfy the basic demand of oriental medical service in rural areas, the oriental public health doctors were placed in rural health centers since 1998. The main objectives of this study are twofold: to measure the cognition and attitude of health center directors on the strategies for utilizing oriental public health doctors and to provide basic data for improving the health manpower management program. Data have been collected by way of the self-administrative questionnaires. Developing the questionnaire, the literature review on the previous studies and delphi method were carried out. The response rate was 38.7%. The results of this study are summarized as follows; 1. community people respond positively on the oriental medical service activity in health center. 2. In regard to workloads of oriental public health doctor, 'appropriate' was 81.1% and 'burdensome' was 18.2%, respectively. 3. The 94.0% of respondents thought that the oriental medical service will be continued. 4. To activate oriental medical service in health center, the sufficient budget and provision of aid workers is a necessity. 5. The 75.5% of health center directors respond positively on the allocation of oriental public health doctor to health sub-centers. 6. Health center directors agreed that oriental public health doctor should perform the clinical service as well as prevention and health promotion activity. These results recommend that oriental medical service in health center should be continued gradually, and oriental public health doctors working at health center perform their work efficiently. Undoubtedly, their activity should be more focused on health promotion and disease prevention than daily patient care. For achieving this objective, more support of governmental policy is essential for utilizing oriental public health doctor and better health of the rural area community people.
