Health policy
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Geriatric intermediate care facilities (GICFs) were first established in 1987 to help the hospitalized elderly return home within 3 months. Users of the GICFs are the elders who do not require hospitalization, but are mentally or physically impaired. ⋯ Due to the limited supply of institutional and in-home services for the elderly in long-term care systems in Japan, only half of the discharged users were able to return home and a quarter stayed at GICFs for over 1 year, contrary to the initial purpose. This suggests that in addition to serving as an intermediate facility between institutions and private homes, GICFs should enlarge their role of home care supporting facilities in ways that would enable them to provide frail elderly patients at home with respite care and daycare services.