1) Background: The hospitals of modem society, like any other business entities, have to constantly strive to secure their survival from aggressive changes and competition outside. In this unstable environment, effective leadership is one of the most effective strategies for securing organization's growth as well as stability. This study investigated types of leadership (transformational or transactional) that is dominant in medical record departments and compared it's effects on organizational commitment and job satisfaction of their organizational members by types. 2) Method: A questionnaire was developed and mailed to all medical record administrators working at general hospitals throughout the country except department directors (N=450). Of these, 150 useable questionnaires were returned and analyzed by t-test, multiple regression analysis using SPSS. 3) Results: The organizational commitment and job satisfaction were a little bit higher than moderate level, and that of leadership perceived by medical record administrators was also in moderate level throughout types. Significant characteristics (positively) related to organizational commitment and job satisfaction by univariate analysis were marital status (married), position (middle management) and both type of leadership. However transformational leadership was the only significant factor in leadership styles after considering all the factors related to organizational commitment and job satisfaction together by multivariate analysis. 4) Conclusion: The average organizational commitment and job satisfaction of medical record administrators was just in moderate level. Efforts should be made to increase them by improving leadership capacity of medical record directors, primarily by using transformational leadership approach.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to develop and apply the critical pathway to the nasal bone fracture patients and to elucidate its effect. Methods: Critical pathway (CP) sheet and questionnaire were developed by a team approach. Critical pathway were applied to 30 nasal bone fracture patients (CP group) from June 2001 to November 2001. Length of hospitalization, cost for hospitalization and bed turnover rate of CP group were compared to those of the 30 patients who had same disease entities and treated by conventional regimen (control group). Results: Length of hospitalization in the CP group (4.20 day) were significantly shorter than that of control group (6.21 day). Mean cost for hospitalization of the CP group (492,106 won) were significantly lower than that of control group (678,376 won). Bed turnover rate in CP group (2.5) were higher than that of control group. The patients satisfaction for the medical personnel, explanation regarding operation procedure, therapeutic operation fee, and length of hospitalization were all affirmative. Conclusion: Critical pathway that we developed for nasal bone fracture definitely improved the quality of treatment and lowered cost of medical service. Furthermore, other critical pathways should be developed for another facial trauma patients.

Objectives: To evaluate the performance of models to predict AMI patients death using severity adjustment measures in Korea. Methods: Medical records of 861 patients treated by AMI in 7 general hospitals during 1996 and 1997 were reviewed by trained nurses. We measured the severity of patients by APACHE III, MedisGroups, CSI and DS. Using each severity method a predictive mortality for each patient was calculated from a logistic regression model including the severity score. The statistical performance of each severity method model was evaluated by using c-statistics and R2. For each hospital, z scores compared actual and expected mortality rates. Results: The overall in-hospital mortality was 14.5%, ranged from 10.0% to 22.2%. The distributions of severity scores for each method was significantly different by hospitals. The four severity-adjusted models to predict AMI patients death varied in their statistical performance for discrimination power of patients death. Order of Severity-adjusted mortality rates and z scores by four severity measures was different. Conclusion: Severity-adjusted mortality rates of AMI patients might be applied as an indicator for hospital performance evaluation in Korea. Because different severity methods frequently produce different impressions about relative hospital performance, more studies has to be done to use it as quality indicator and more attention should be paid to select appropriate severity measures.

Background : Gastric cancer is the most common malignant tumor in Korea. Surgical operation is one of the major treatment modalities for gastric cancer patients. Therefore, gastrectomy is one of the most common procedures in General Surgery. There were variation in length of hospital stay and medical treatment for gastrectomy between three surgeons at Asan Medical Center. Clinical pathways have received considerable attention as a tool for reducing the medical practice variation, increasing the efficiency of care process, and improving the quality of care. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a clinical pathway for gastrectomy in gastric cancer patients. Methods : The clinical pathway for gastrectomy was developed and implemented by a multidisciplinary group in Asan Medical Center. A computerized clinical pathway program was developed and revised after a pilot test. A total of 145 patients underwent gastrectomy by three surgeons at Asan Medical Center. We compared the length of hospital stay, patient satisfaction, and the unplanned readmission rate between the pre-pathway group (n=67) and the post-pathway group (n=78). We also investigated the degree of satisfaction among the physicians and nurses who were main end-users of the clinical pathway. Results : The clinical pathway was applied to all target patients. The average length of hospital stay was shortened from 12.7days to 10.6days (p<0.01). The degree of patient satisfaction with the care process changed from 90.3% to 89.2% after the implementation of the clinical pathway, but the difference was not statistically significant (p=0.761). Unplanned readmission rate was 2.9% in the pre-pathway group and 0% in the post-pathway group. More than 90% of physicians and nurses answered that the clinical pathway had been a useful tool in their medical practice. Conclusions : The findings of the study demonstrated that implementation of the clinical pathway for gastrectomy produced substantial reduction in the length of hospital stay while improving the quality of patient outcomes. The computerized clinical pathway program can be used as one of the powerful patient management tools for reducing the practice variations and increasing the efficiency of care process in Korean hospital settings.

Background: Dental hygienists are at risk of acquiring infections through exposure to infectious agents. This study explores the frequency of exposure to infectious agents and infection control practices among dental hygienists. Methods: We undertook a cross-sectional survey to examine the exposure to infectious agents and infection control practices among dental hygienists through questionnaire. Data were obtained from 124 dental hygienists attending educational conferences. A multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine the factors that effect infection control practices in relation to age, completion of infection control education, recognition of their own serum hepatitis Ag/Ab status, the number of one day patients, location of clinics, type of clinics, and career years. Result: Of the 124 dental hygienists, 91.7% were exposed to at least one accident such as needle stick injuries during their practices periods. The health screening coverage rate in dental hygienists was 16.5%. The number of one day patients and career years were important in relation to infection control practices among dental hygienists. The adjusted odds ratio estimates for career years were 5.049 times greater(95% Cl 1.238-20.597) for groups with over 4 career years than under 2 career years. That for the number of one day patients were 0.261(95% Cl 0.071-0.955) lower for through 20 up to 30 patients, 0.531(95% Cl 0.102-2.78) lower for through 30 up to 40 patients and 0.498(95% Cl 0.123-2.017) lower for more than 40 patients than under 20 patients. Conclusion: From these results, prevalence of infection control practices among dental hygienists is related to the number of one day patients and career years. Prevention of cross infection and reduction of future transmission should be a priority to dental hygienists for promotion of infection control and further efforts to educate newcomers on infection prevention should be made.

Background : ICD-10 Classification, which is used domestically as well as internationally, has limited use in the clinical practice since it is developed for at disease statistics and epidemiology. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to improve the quality of diagnosis by constructing a new disease classification based on the diagnoses doctors currently make in the clinical setting and connecting this classification with OCS and EMR, and to meet the demands of doctors for high quality medical study data in medical research. Methods : The specialists in each ophthalmic subfield collected clinical diagnoses and abbreviations based on the ophthalmology textbooks and confirmed the classifications. Total number of clinical diagnoses collected was totaled 672, for which ideal diagnoses had been selected and a new model of disease classification model in connection with ICD-10 was constructed. The constructed classification of clinical diagnoses consisted of six steps: the first step was the classification by ophthalmic subspecialty field; the second to fifth steps were the detailed classification by each specialty field; the sixth step was the classification by site. Results : After introducing the new disease classification, research on the use and a pre-post comparison was conducted. The result from the research on the use of the clinical diagnoses in inpatient and outpatient care has shown a gradually increasing tendency. From the pre-post comparison of EMR discharge summary diagnoses, the result demonstrated that the diagnosis was stated correctly and in detail. Since the diagnosis was stated correctly, code classification became correct as well, which makes it possible to construct high quality medical DB. Conclusion : This construction of clinical diagnoses provides the medical team with high quality medical information. It is also expected to increase the accuracy and efficiency of service in the department of medical record and department of insurance investigation. In the future, if hospitals wish to construct a classification of clinical diagnosis and a standard proposal of clinical diagnosis is presented by a medical society, the standardization of diagnosis seems to be possible.

Objectives: To develop a model that predicts a death probability of acute myocardial infarction(AMI) patient, and to evaluate a performance of hospital services using the developed model. Methods: Medical records of 861 AMI patients in 7 general hospitals during 1996 and 1997 were reviewed by two trained nurses. Variables studied were risk factors which were measured in terms of severity measures. A risk model was developed by using the logistic regression, and its performance was evaluated using cross-validation and bootstrap techniques. The statistical prediction capability of the model was assessed by using c-statistic, $R^2$ as well as Hosmer-Lemeshow statistic. The model performance was also evaluated using severity-adjusted mortalities of hospitals. Results: Variables included in the model building are age, sex, ejection fraction, systolic BP, congestive heart failure at admission, cardiac arrest, EKG ischemia, arrhythmia, left anterior descending artery occlusion, verbal response within 48 hours after admission, acute neurological change within 48 hours after admission, and 3 interaction terms. The c statistics and $R^2$ were 0.887 and 0.2676. The Hosmer-Lemeshow statistic was 6.3355 (p-value=0.6067). Among 7 hospitals evaluated by the model, two hospitals showed significantly higher mortality rates, while other two hospitals had significantly lower mortality rates, than the average mortality rate of all hospitals. The remaining hospitals did not show any significant difference. Conclusion: The comparison of the qualities of hospital service using risk-adjusted mortality rates indicated significant difference among them. We therefore conclude that risk-adjusted mortality rate of AMI patients can be used as an indicator for evaluating hospital performance in Korea.