Structural alignment of Korea’s Integrated Care Support Act with the World Health Organization’s Integrated Care for Older People framework, including Singapore case: a narrative review

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the legal readiness of South Korea's Act on Integrated Support for Community Care using the World Health Organization’s Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) framework.Methods: Using the ICOPE action items and system-level enablers as the analytical framework, the provisions of the law were systematically reviewed, and a comparative case study of Singapore’s national strategy was conducted.Results: The analysis showed that while the Korean law establishes a legal foundation for procedural components such as case finding and planning (the Ready phase), it critically lacks operational mechanisms necessary for implementation (the Set phase). In particular, the law does not provide detailed standards for a multidisciplinary workforce, performance-based financial incentives, or a function-oriented data system. The comparison with Singapore further underscored a major governance limitation, specifically the absence of a national-level control tower capable of coordinating fragmented services.Conclusion: Creating a national-level implementation support agency should be a top policy priority. Such an agency is essential to serve as the control tower needed to develop workforce and data standards, align financial incentives, and coordinate a coherent national strategy for integrated care.