Home care nursing in Japan: a challenge for providing good care at home.

Home care in Japan has developed over the past 30 years. Nurses have taken leadership in promoting home care and at the same time have expanded their roles. The roles of Japanese nurses in the field of home care are presented in the context of the historical perspective and view for the future. Home care nurses have performed care management for their community as well as for individual older clients living in their community. Currently, nurses work as high-tech and personal care providers and are developing a new role in health care enterprises. The number of nurses working as clinical nurse specialists will increase consistently with the rapid increase of master's programs. In the future, nurses should take a lead in developing health policy. The purpose of the article is to describe the current situation of home care clients and home care nursing in Japan. In addition, four issues of home care in Japan are described related to home care for older persons, high-tech home care, terminal care, and home care for psychiatric patients.