• Health Policy and Management
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.21-37
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to examine internet agent of IT(Information Technology) in health care industry Since IT is essential for corporate strategy in service management, this section examines IT in health care service, especially from the view of 'Agent Technology' that has been recently issued. Intelligent agent is a new paradigm for developing software applications. More than this, agent-based computing has been hailed as 'the next significant break-through in software development' and 'the new revolution in software'. And health care service is a non-mechanic, human-based service. This paper reviewed what possible suggestions or advices can be made to the health care service. Since many health care services using internet have been attempted over the recent years, this study will hopefully be able to come up with good suggestions from many aspects. Thus, information inequality between producer(physician) and consumer(patient) in health care service will be decreased through the introduction of agent technology.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.87-106
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• 2001

There has been a series of struggles around the governmental enforcing separation of prescribing and dispensing since the consensus for the policy at May 10, 1995, and the strike among the physicians nationwide at June 19, 2000. This thesis is to review the process of the affair as a whole and find out some achievements and lessons from it. Most visible achievement is that physicians have obtained governmental apology for the enforcing the unprepared policy, and promise to revise the Law on the Pharmaceutical Affairs, to enlarge governmental support for the medical insurance program, to construct a presidential committee for the reformation of medical affairs, and so on. Besides these achievements, physicians have learned much on the relations among them and with society in general. However this is only the first scene on the road to an extensive transformation in the medical area following more critical Issues on the medical reformation.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2011

This study investigated unmet health care needs and associated factors among patients with hypertension and those with diabetes. Patients were identified by medical professionals. Patients who did not take pharmaceuticals to treat their disease(s) were defined as those with unmet health care needs. Using data from 2005 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 3,635 hypertension patients and 1,431 diabetes patients were analyzed. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was employed to examine factors associated with unmet needs. Overall, 16.6% of hypertension patients, 20.3% of those with diabetes presented unmet needs. Common factors associated unmet needs for both hypertension and diabetes were sex, insurance type, self-reported health status and length of disease. Study findings suggest that hypertension and diabetes should be treated in early stage and further study is needed to examine the reasons for unmet needs to improve patient's status effectively.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.213-248
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• 2011

Past studies on organizational accountability have had similar limitations. First, empirical evidence of organizational accountability is rare as the majority of research takes a conceptual approach of the topic. Only a few of these studies are applicable to health care organizations (HCOs). To fill these gaps, we attempted to develop a model for analysis of organizational accountability for HCOs. Accountability for HCOs was conceptualized by two axes: answerability(X, horizontal) and value-creation(Y, vertical). Our concept building could relieve competing accountability mechanism which past studies stressed. Four elements of accountability(legal, economical, social, and clinical) were applied to specify each of the two features of organizational accountability. And then four types of accountability behavior were coordinated by this x-y axis : high A/high VC, high A/low VC, low A/high VC, low A/low VC. Finally, a multidimensional model of HCOs' accountability, enabling an empirically testable multi-level analysis, was proposed.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.102-123
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• 1993

This study investigates effcts of HMO internal structural arrangements on performance, specially cost reduction measured by hospitalization rate. This study formulates formalization, centralization measured by decision-making participation, differentiation, and coordination as structural factors, considering coordination as an intermediate factor between the rest of structural factors and hospitalization rate. The commonly used HMO types is assumed not effective in explaining performance differences. For the empirical test, I use bootstrap regression analyses with 48 HMOs. The results of the analyses show that HMO types fail to explain differences in hospitalization rate. However, dicision-making participation and differention effectively reduce hospiatalization rate, while frmalization increases hospitalization rate and coordination has nonessential effect on hospitalization rate. And, formalization and decision-making participation positively contribute to achieve coordination in HMO. These findings suggest that the theoretical framework derived from rational-citingency theory of formal organization better explains performance differences of HMOs than HMO types.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.152-161
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• 2015

We analyze the determinants of obesity and the chronic diseases using the Korea Health Panel data. Also we analyze the effect of obesity and the chronic diseases on the health care expenditures. Through this study, to reduce the health care expenditures, we suggest the policy implication that might curb the obesity and the chronic diseases. We estimate the determinants of obesity, the chronic diseases, and the health care expenditures using 2SLS (two stage least squares) estimation method under the simultaneous equations framework. Result says that obesity and chronic diseases significantly have positive effects on the health care expenditures. Also the determinants of the health care expenditures that have positive effects are age, income and health care utilization variables.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.74-96
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• 2010

The purpose of this empirical study is to evaluate efficiency of the regional public hospitals, using DEA(Data Envelopment Analysis). to do this, we design a DEA-AR/AHP Hybrid model to evaluate efficiency of 34 Regional Public Hospitals. the proposed model is developed by adding Acceptance Region(AR). using analytical hierarchy process(AHP). this model is compared with those of typical DEA models. Financial data used in this study were obtained from Database of the Korea Association Regional Public Hospital and analyzed using DEA model. As a result of analysis, This study found that the DEA-AR/AHP Hybrid model was superior to those typical DEA models in determining the priority among efficient hospitals. the result of this study can provide helpful information to evaluate the efficiency of public hospitals for efficient operational management, to develop more precise measurement for the priority of the efficient hospitals.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.332-341
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• 2019

Background: This study analyzes the effects of the individual's health behavior on the health and the medical demand for the management of health and medical expenses. Methods: This study uses the Korea Health Panel Survey data from 2010 to 2015. We utilize the panel ordered logit model and the panel Tobit model with the subjective health status and the medical expenses as the dependent variables. Results: Chronic diseases would cause the deterioration of his or her health and the increase in medical expenses. Smoking and drinking alcohol would deteriorate one's health. The total amount of cigarettes increases medical expenses. Exercises could make people healthier, whereas excessive exercise might increase medical expenses. Private health insurance would increase medical expenses. Conclusion: Since health could reduce the medical expenses, people should promote one's health by changing one's behavior for health.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.115-147
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• 1992

The purposes of this paper are twofold : to identify what pathway insured patients are seeking medical care services through, and then, to provide the basis for the prediction and evaluation of the effects of a new policy intervention. To change the patient flow across different types of medical care facilities, this intervention has been enforced since July 1, 1989. It is mainly aimed at discouraging the use of the tertiary hospitals by imposing some restrictions on the patient's choice. The data for analysis were obtained from the claims to the insurance for govermment and school employees. The sample was drawn from the claims for about 1% of the enrollees using medical care facilities during 2 years since January 1, 1985. The sample included 91, 483 for 1985 and 81,914 for 1986, among them the number of patients to initiate the use of medical care service were 66,757 and 59,498 respectively. This paper analysed what types of and how many medical care facilities the patient with same disease had used.

• Journal of the Health Care and Life Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.103-115
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to understand the annual trend of patients with cervical vertebrae disability and improve their health service utilization in the general description (200 TABLE) of patients with cervical vertebrae disability.The main results of this study are as follows. All patients with cervical vertebrae disability were women aged 50 to 59. Compared to 2010, the proportion of patients with disease increased year by year in all subjects in 2018, with men under 30-39 years of age and women under 19 years of age increasing the highest.