• Convergence Security Journal
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.107-113
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• 2012

Due to the development of communications technology, it is now possible to be offered online from remote places. This kind of communications technology can be applied to the medical field. The medical treatment appointments in hospitals can be its typical example. But still, in most of hospitals, patient or guardian have to physically visit or call to the hospital to set up an appointment for the medical treatment. In addition, they have to wait in line in order to pay after receiving the medical treatment. The patient or guardian, after paying, receive a paper prescription and they go to a nearby pharmacy to take the medicines. They must wait in line again there in order to receive the medicine from the pharmacy. In this paper, we would like to suggest a smart medical treatment system in order to solve the problems discussed above. With this proposed system, the user will be able to make an appointment, make payments and receive medication quickly and easily without spending extra time. Also, there will be no need for paper prescriptions with this system. We discuss about the security of medical information for this proposed smart medical treatment system proposed.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.272-281
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• 2014

Objective: The provision of pharmaceutical care service in compliance with good pharmacy practice (GPP) standards is important, but there is lack of studies to investigate the barriers that significantly hinder community pharmacies in Korea from adhering to the standards. This study was aimed to identify the major barriers to provision of pharmaceutical care service in compliance with the proposed pharmacy practice standards which have been developed based on the GPP standards recommended jointly by WHO and FIP. Methods: Questionnaires reviewed by the expert committee were posted for 32 days on the website which is most frequently accessed by community pharmacists. The respondents completed them by checking the scores (Max=5, Min=1) for major barriers to provision of pharmaceutical care service focusing on patient information management and drug use review process in prescription fillings. The answered scores were automatically collected using online data processing. Mean differences between scored data were assessed by ANOVA. Results: Total 321 pharmacists participated in the survey. Results indicated that 'difficulty of diagnosis identification' (m=3.92, SD=1.21), 'lack of time' (m=3.48, SD=1.22) and 'lack of updated clinical information' (m=3.17, SD=1.10) were the major barriers to provision of pharmaceutical care service in patient information management. The main barriers to drug utilization review were 'lack of time' (m=3.32, SD=1.21), 'lack of updated clinical information' (m=3.11, SD=1.17), and 'negative feedbacks or refusals from prescribers' (m=3.00, SD=1.38). There were significant differences among the groups by location, employed number of pharmacists and acceptability to the proposed GPP standards. Conclusion: Difficulties in managing patient clinical information and lack of time were found to be the major barriers in providing pharmaceutical care services in community pharmacies in Korea. Further research is recommended to determine ways to reduce these barriers in order to provide quality pharmaceutical care service that is in compliance with the internationally recognized GPP guidelines.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2013

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the patterns of Over-the-Counter (OTC) drugs and their interactions with prescription drugs in adults visiting a community pharmacy. Method: The subjects were 151 adults aged over 20 years visiting a community pharmacy in Asan-si from December 16th 2011 to February 1st 2012. We used a survey questionnaire. The survey inquired about the prevalence and the details of any OTC drug use and the characteristics of the study subjects. The drug interaction classification system from Lexicomp's Lexi-interact data fields was used to identify OTC drugs likely to have clinically significant interactions with prescription drugs. Results: The patterns of OTC drug use were related to thirties (from 30 to 40 years old), female gender, higher education, non-smoking, sometimes use of alcohol, and self-perceived normal health status. The most commonly used OTC drug category was antipyretic-analgesics (n=104, 53.3%), and the most commonly used ingredient was acetaminophen (n=67, 64.4%). The biggest motivation for taking OTC drugs was suggestion by pharmacists, reported by 55.6%. After reviewing each patient's prescription drugs and OTC drugs, 14 patients (36.8%) of 38 patients using prescription drugs were taking drug combinations with potential for clinically significant interactions. The concomitant use of OTC drugs with prescription drugs may lead to increased potentially harmful interactions. Conclusion: It is suggested that health-care professionals should be more aware of the potential and possible interactions and take into better account their patients' OTC drug use.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.299-303
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• 2004

Prescription filling in powder form is performed in community pharmacy practice to adjust dose for children and patients who cannot swallow whole tablet. However, there are few reports regarding the stability of the active ingredient and possible microbial growth after the medication is dispensed to powder form. This study examined the stability of atenolol, an antihypertensive agent, and microbial growth in the unit dose pouches dispensed at twenty-one community pharmacies located in Taegu area. Randomly chosen first unit dose pouch contained 77.4% of the prescribed dose of the drug and there were only four community pharmacies that dispensed the drug within 10% deviation from the dose prescribed by physician. Surprisingly, there were three community pharmacies that dispensed the drug with greater than 40% deviation, which may pose a major concern regarding the efficacy and safety of the drug prescribed for the treatment of hypertension. Atenolol content during a month did not indicate significant change, showing 5.4%, 4.3%, and 3.3% of decrease in 50%, 80%, and 90% relative humidity conditions, respectively. Microbiological examination during a month showed less than 0.5 microorganism in high power field (hpf) in all the relative humidity conditions tested. Based on this study, pharmacy practice in community pharmacy needs to be rigorously regulated to ensure that the dose of the prescribed drug is properly incorporated into the unit dose pouch dispensed as powder form.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.1051-1054
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• 2006

Lots of information such as prescription transmitted to the drug store by the result of separation of medical activity from medicine one, EDI for billing medical charge to Health Care Public Cooperation and the returned opinion letter sent to doctor etc is scattered in the Web document made from XML. Especially information containing medical treatment charge is one of the materials that are revised frequently. It is the current situation that document is transmitted or form is made for distribution whenever this kinds of revision is occurred. In this thesis, DTD design and implementation for the information system regarding the rate of medical charge is studied based on XML which is used to calculate charges for the several activities including consulting and prescribing. Patient or patron as well as doctor, pharmacist and nurse are all interested in the information regarding the rate of medical charge. It aims everybody to easily obtain information about the rate of medical charge by querying it anytime, anywhere.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.58 no.3
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• pp.208-222
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• 2014

Pharmacy practice experiences play a central role in improving the professional abilities and roles of student pharmacists in the changed '2+4'-year curricula of Korean pharmacy schools. For the first 3 years, the students usually learn theoretical areas, and for the last year, they apply learned knowledge to actual pharmacy practice environments. Especially, in order for community pharmacy practice experiences to become firmly established, it is important to evaluate students' feedbacks of community pharmacy practice experiences. However, there have been little studies regarding this area in Korea. This study was to analyze pharmacy students' perceptions and evaluations after community pharmacy practice experiences. The self-reported questionnaire using a 5-point Likert scale was utilized to collect data from the pharmacy students completing community pharmacy practice experiences. Total 62 students responded to the survey questionnaires. The average of students' evaluations of preceptors for overall evaluation items was 4.31 whereas that of student evaluations of practice sites for them was 4.03. The self-evaluations of students' expertises were mostly positive except for that of populations care. The evaluation item 'I believe this experience will help me be a better pharmacist' received the highest satisfaction. According to the results regarding open-ended questions, the students learned the needs for academic motivations and self-developments, and they thought that the curriculum should be standardized and systematized in order to improve contents for community pharmacy practice experiences. Furthermore, based on these results, the guidelines of community pharmacy practice experiences should be modified, and researches on the validation and evaluations of the modified guidelines should be implemented.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.598-607
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• 2019

The side effects of using drugs can greatly threaten the health of the public. The reality is that there are very few reports of current side effects. This can be activated by linking adverse drug reactions reporting to the Drug Utilization Review (DUR) currently used by pharmacies. A study of the U.S. medication management system, where drug use assessment is activated, can find ways to activate adverse drug reactions reporting. In 'Pharm IT 3000', which is used as a medication management program in pharmacies, we examined how to enable reporting of adverse drug reactions. The literature study and research on actual program operation have found a convenient way to report side effects by linking the Pharm IT 3000 prescription preparation assessment to the item.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.115-125
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• 2019

Objectives: Korea has been practicing the separation of dispensary from medical practice since 2000 as a national policy to prevent misuse or overuse of medicines. This study aimed to investigate prescription patterns from except pharmacies in order to determine the appropriateness of drug usage among those patients. Methods: Thirty-two pharmacies in the Yeongdong area of Gangwon Province were examined in this study. The same simulated patient complaining of cold symptoms for 3 days visited each pharmacy to obtain a prescription for medication. Results: At pharmacies prescribing medicine, steroids (53.1%) and antibiotics (50.0%) were used to treat the common cold. Duplicate prescriptions of drugs, such as antihistamines (47.0%) and decongestants (31.3%) were common. The average number of drug prescriptions was 6.59, and 53.2% of pharmacies had prescribed more than seven drugs. The average total cost of the prescriptions was 6,093 won, and the daily cost was 2,544 won. Conclusions: Steroids and antibiotics were frequently abused among patients whose medications had been prescribed by pharmacies. Also, there were a considerable number of drugs and duplicate prescriptions. The prices of the drugs were somewhat high.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.145-152
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• 2021

Background: The Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision-Making Act has allowed anyone aged 19 or older to sign an Advance Directive not to receive life-sustaining treatment when they are in the 'death process'. Recently, the Korean Pharmaceutical Association announced to raise awareness of the Advance Directive to the general public through community pharmacies across the country. This study aimed to investigate the public's willingness to accept pharmacist's consultation regarding the Advance Directive and to present future directions to pharmacists Methods: This cross-sectional questionnaire study using 16-items was conducted in adults, Study subjects were recruited by convenience sampling method during August 5-15, 2020. Results: Of 460 respondents, 51.7% were younger than 30-year-old and 58.7% were not in the healthcare field in terms of job or major. 60.2% knew about the Advance Directive and 81.7% agreed the necessity to sign when healthy. 50.0% had the willingness to consult with pharmacists on the Advance Directive for well-dying and 80.4% preferred verbal explanation together with written information. Simple linear regression analysis results showed a significant relationship between trust in pharmacists or satisfaction with pharmacist's communication and willingness to use pharmacist' consultation on the Advance Directive (1-point increases in values measured on a five-point scale are associated with 0.464 and 0.486 increases, respectively.) Conclusion: This study suggests that pharmacists need to improve the public's trust and communication capability to satisfy with public's demands on well-dying service.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.403-412
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• 2021

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to assess oral health knowledge and behavior levels of community pharmacists as a step toward projecting them to play the role of oral health partners and to confirm pharmacists' willingness to participate in oral health education programs. Methods: t-test and one-way analysis of variance were performed to analyze the data, and correlation analysis was also performed. Results: The mean score for pharmacists' oral health knowledge was 7.29 out of 10. Of the 12 questions asked, the correct answer rate was highest for the question about the effect of smoking cessation on periodontal disease prevention; conversely, the correct answer rate was lowest for the question about the effect of taking medication for gingival infections on periodontal disease prevention. The mean score for pharmacists' oral health behavior was 2.97 out of 4 points. Of all oral health behaviors, brushing twice a day was the most practiced, whereas immediately visiting a dentist in case of an oral health issue was the least practiced. Pharmacists' oral health knowledge and behavior levels showed a weak positive correlation with their intention to participate in oral health education programs. Conclusions: Oral health education programs are necessary to improve community pharmacists' oral health knowledge and behavior.