Developing key performance indicators for guaranteeing right to health and access to medical service for persons with disabilities in Korea: Using a modified Delphi

Recently, the Act on Guarantee of Right to Health and Access to Medical Service for Persons with Disabilities was implemented to legally define the health care system for persons with disabilities (PWDs) and the guarantee of access to medical care in Korea. This study aimed to develop specific goals and performance indicators to establish a system to guarantee right to health and access to medical service for PWDs. The first procedure was the establishment of the performance indicators, and the second was the content validity verification of the established performance indicators. To establish the performance indicators, we used the policy indicators of the government to improve the health of the Korean people. The indicators that needed to be newly developed were established based on literature review and expert consultation. Three Delphi surveys were conducted to verify the content validity of the established performance indicators. The content validity index (CVI) was obtained for the importance and possibility of the performance indicators. The indicators using the existing policy indicators are “proportion of public health centers” and “rate of health checkup of PWDs,” and newly developed indicators are “establishment of facilities for PWDs in health care facilities (buildings and personnel)” and “diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in early childhood (average age and awareness).” The final performance indicators consist of a total of six areas, 22 sub-areas, and 40 individual indicators. The final performance indicators in this study can be used as basic data for continuously identifying the health status of PWDs in Korea and establishing the national policy for their health promotion. This study is also expected to serve as a framework to guarantee the right to health and access to medical service for PWDs rather than simply containing declarative content.