The Actual Situation and Issues of Home Care Equipment Expert Advisors under the Long-term Care Insurance System −Interview Survey−

Abstract

This study seeks to clarify how home care equipment expert advisors address issues regarding their actual situation with regards to older adults with disabilities. Apropos this, a semi-structured interview survey was conducted with six home care equipment expert advisors from their rental offices for welfare and preventive care equipment in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The analysis generated 28 codes, which were organized into seven categories, and divided into three scenarios involving home care equipment expert advisors: self-consciousness of home care equipment expert advisors, service and monitoring of home care equipment, and human resource development and self-improvement. Consequently, we found that each home care equipment expert advisor not only had different perspectives on work and issues related to workload, but also regarding their awareness of self-improvement. The results suggest that home care equipment expert advisors are required to provide a certain standard for the selection of assistive technology on the knowledge gathered by their predecessors and create an environment where leaders supervise each home care equipment expert advisor.