• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.389-399
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• 2022

Background: This study aimed to analyze changes in medical utilization and cost before and after long-term care (LTC) implementation. Methods: We used the National Health Information Database from National Health Insurance Service. The participants were selected who had a new LTC grade (grade 1-5) for 2015. Medical utilization was analyzed before and after LTC implementation. Segmented regression analysis of interrupted time series was conducted to evaluate the overall effect of the LTC implementation on medical costs. Results: The total number of participants was 41,726. A major reason for hospitalization in grade 1 was cerebrovascular diseases, and dementia was the top priority in grade 5. The proportion of hospitalization in grade 1 increased sharply before LTC implementation and then decreased. In grade 5, it increased before LTC implementation, but there was no significant difference after LTC implementation. As for medical cost, in grades 1 to 4, the total cost increased sharply before the LTC implementation, but thereafter, changes in level and trend tended to decrease statistically, and for grade 5, immediately after LTC implementation, the level change was decreasing, but thereafter, the trend change was increasing. Conclusion: Long-term care grades showed different medical utilization and cost changes. Long-term care beneficiaries would improve their quality of life by adequately resolving their medical needs by their grades.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.261-296
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• 2009

I constructed the 2003 Korean 'social accounting matrix'(SAM) to analyze the multipliers of total demand for each economic activity. I find that the relative magnitude of the influence of the welfare policy to the national economy measured by input-output production multipliers tends to be underestimated compared to SAM multipliers. This is because the total demand multipliers of SAM include the private sector effects, which is not considered in the input-output model. The result also support that income inflows in public service areas including education, health and social work, generate gains in the relative income of households.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.238-250
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• 2011

Objectives: This study was performed to investigate the service needs of the beneficiaries who had enrolled in home-based management programs for cancer patients. Methods: From March to May 2009, 676 cancer patients who were registered in home-based cancer patient management programs were selected as subjects for this study. The data were collected using a questionnaire along with a face-to-face interview performed by officers in charge of the home-based care programs of 47 regional health centers. Fifteen patients were excluded due to incomplete data, leaving 661 subjects who were ultimately enrolled in the study. Results: The mean age of subjects was $64.0{\pm}2.5$ years, and males comprised 45.1% (298/661) of the sample. The results of factor analysis for service needs showed that there were five main categories and Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.593 to 0.890 for each factor. The service needs categories in order of importance were social support, information and education, psychological problems, physical symptoms and household chores. The service needs scores were significantly different when subjects were stratified by age, habitation, religion and disease classification. When we divided the subjects into complete remission, under treatment and terminally ill groups, the needs scores of the terminally ill patient group were significantly higher than those of the other groups (p<0.001). Conclusions: Service provision based on patient and beneficiary needs could be an effective intervention to reduce the economic burden of cancer management and to improve the quality of life of cancer patients receiving home-based care. Therefore, it is recommended that individual cancer patient care programs be developed and administered according to patient age, habitation and disease severity.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.253-263
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• 2013

Purpose: This study was conducted to analyze the association between spirituality and stress of mental health social workers, which could be used in development of a program to help them manage stress and offer spiritual support. Methods: Participants were 154 mental health social workers in Korea. Data were collected from November 1 through November 30, 2011. The study employed the Korean version of the Spirituality Scale and Psychosocial Well-being Index-Short Form (PWI-SF). Data were analyzed using SPSS/Windows 17.0. Results: The mean score for the Spirituality Scale was 3.63 and for PWI-SF 18.78. Spirituality scores showed a significant difference among participants by age, education, religion and marital status. Psychosocial stress scores also significantly differed by marital status. Spirituality scores were negatively correlated with psychosocial stress scores (r=-0.548, P<0.001). Conclusion: In this study, a significant negative association was found between spirituality and stress in mental health social workers in Korea. A follow-up study with a larger sample of participants is needed to confirm these findings.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.381-388
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of dental institutions among Chinese students in Korea in an attempt to provide some information on how to make more and better dental services accessible to them. The subjects in this study were Chinese students who were studying in eight different colleges. After a survey was conducted from April 1 to July 15, 2011, the following findings were given: 1. Concerning experiences of using domestic dental institutions, the majority of the respondents never received dental treatment in our country. The most widely used dental institutions were dental clinics, and the most common treatment they received was about dental caries. 2. As for the reason why they didn't receive dental treatment in our country, the biggest group cited the burden of medical cost and time constraints as the reasons. 3. The students who had medical insurance slightly outnumbered those who hadn't. Regarding the necessity of medical insurance, most of them considered that to be necessary, and those who had medical insurance received more dental treatment than the others who hadn't. 4. As to satisfaction with dental treatment, the students who were better at Korean expressed more satisfaction, and those who had medical insurance were better satisfied than the others who hadn't. In conclusion, the medical insurance system should be improved to let Chinese students have medical insurance compulsorily to ensure their efficient use of dental institutions, and every college should offer administrative assistance for health care.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.411-420
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• 2018

This study was conducted to identify the effects of interpersonal communication between health care providers after receiving supplementary education. The participants of this study were 433 health care providers who work at 29 general hospitals in Gwangju Metropolitan City and Jeollanamdo Province. Data were collected from June 8 to June 25, 2018 and evaluated by t-tests, dispersion analysis, correlation analysis and stepwise regression. The results were produced by investigating interpersonal communications according to socio-demographic and health-related characteristics including age, education level, bed size of the hospital at which the participant worked, job satisfaction, hospital location, personal health status, experience with health care management and experience with depression. There were significant differences in communication observed according to supplemental education awareness regarding age, bed size of hospital, occupation, wage, type of medical institution of employment, job satisfaction, work location, health status, health care education experience and chronic disease. There were positive correlations between supplemental education awareness in health workers and their interpersonal communication. The factors that had positive effects on interpersonal communication were level of education and health-related education experience, while age, hospital bed size and job dissatisfaction had negative effects. Finally, support environment, learning transfer and results were identified as sub-factors of supplemental education. Based on the results above, it was proposed that educational training to enhance results, provide a supportive environment and foster learning transfer be developed to increase communication between health workers and provide a safe health service for patients.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2022.10a
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• pp.496-498
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• 2022

With the prolonged spread of the new coronavirus infection worldwide and the entry of the super-aged society, smart health care, which combines IT technology for senior health care and the health care industry, is emerging as a solution to the aging problem. The development of non-face-to-face care services using Ai is on a global trend, not in some countries, and the form of care services for the elderly using AI artificial intelligence technology is changing rapidly. The convenience of AI-based care services for the elderly is expected to be highlighted, and the technology and market are expected to develop significantly. As the number of single-person households is increasing, the shortage of welfare workers for the elderly is emerging as a social issue. It is presented as a vision to solve long-term social problems such as the labor shortage of elderly care workers as well as the advantages of convenient care services using IT technology. Therefore, we would like to propose the development direction of care services for the elderly as a case study of care services for the elderly and a countermeasure against the super-aging age.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.31-45
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• 2001

With an economic development and epidemiologic transition, the burden of disease due to chronic diseases and accidents is increasing. However, in most of developing countries, long-term care facilities are not available, therefore acute care facilities should provide both acute and long-term care services. It is also true in Korea. The demand for long-term care services needs to be estimated to establish the adequate supply system of health resources. This article introduces the reclassification methodology of inpatients' healthcare utilization to acute and long-term care services. All discharged patients from hospitals for one month were analyzed. The distribution of inpatients' hospital days were fitted to Chi-squared distribution by ICD disease categories, and they were grouped in five clusters. For each cluster, the lower and upper limit of classification criteria to acute and long-term care services were chosen. Summarizing all hospital days corresponding to acute and long-term care respectively, 24 to 28 percent of inpatient services fumed out to be long-term care services. The study results are consistent with those of the existing studies. They can be used practically in the allocation of long-term care resources.

• Journal of the Korea society of information convergence
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.31-40
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• 2014

The old age officially means time when Health is weakened. To complete the social security against the social risks it is on the one hand necessary to provide an elaborate system of coordination in the field of social security. It should be pursued on law as well as policy. Social security benefits should be comparatively analysed to have implications for the national legislation.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.357-366
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• 2014

Background: The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of an emergency ambulance system and to investigate socio-economic and clinical characteristics associated with emergency ambulance service. Methods: Based on 2011 Korea health panel, unmet need and inappropriate use of emergency ambulance service were measured by Gibson in 1977. Furthermore, the factors associated with unmet need and inappropriate use of emergency ambulance service were identified by Fisher's exact tests and multiple logistic regression models. Results: Unmet need, defined as the proportion of emergency patients who clinically need ambulance transportation but do not receive it, was found to be 59.8%. Inappropriate use, defined as the proportion of emergency patient receiving ambulance care who did not clinically need it, was found to be 37.2%. There were statistically significant differences between appropriate and inappropriate groups in overall variables of socio-economic and clinical characteristics. Specifically, gender, age, relationship to household, and reasons of visiting emergency department (accident/disease) were statistically significant factors associated with appropriate use of emergency ambulance service. Conclusion: Unmet ambulance need is a useful measure for patients needs assessment, and inappropriate ambulance use is a valid criteria in judging the efficiency of emergency ambulance system. To improve and understand emergency ambulance system, unmet need and inappropriate use of emergency ambulance service should be more concerned.