• Title/Summary/Keyword: Access to health care

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Oral Health and Related Factors for the Elderly (Structural Equation Modeling을 통한 노인(老人)의 구강건강(口腔健康) 관련요인(關聯要因) 분석(分析))

  • Seung, Jeung-Hee
    • Journal of dental hygiene science
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    • v.4 no.3
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    • pp.91-95
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    • 2004
  • This study aims to analyze realities of oral health and related factors, and establish Structural Equation Modeling. The subjects of study were 9,340 elderly over age 65 who took the health examination(the first) for the local insured which National Health Insurance Corporation carried out in the survey area mentioned below from January 2002 to December 2002. The areas surveyed were 4 big cities including Seongbuk-ku, Seoul, 5 medium cities including Wonjusi, Gangwon-do, and 5 Counties including Yeong deok County, Kyeongbuk. Considering location and the scale of population, firstly, big unit areas(metropolitan city, province) were selected according to convenience, secondly, low unit areas(city, county, district) were selected randomly. The subjects were the elderly who took all tests including an oral examination and filled in the questionnaire. Major results from analysis are as follows: 1. Review of Composition Conception Validity As a result of analyzing composition conception validity of SEM including posture test, urine test, blood test, habits of eating, drinking and smoking, oral symptoms, and oral health status, using fit index such as GFI, CFI, TLI, and RMSEA, all were within fit range and composition conception validity was recognized. 2. As a result of analyzing SEM to find the relationship between each factor and oral health status, it was confirmed that all factors except urine test affected oral health status and the synthetic SEM to explain it could be established. In result, we could verify that the elderly of rural areas who had lesser experience of visiting a clinic and oral prophylaxis had a higher rate of caries, missing teeth, and denture need, and drinking and smoking negatively affected the rate of caries, periodontal, and missing teeth. Also, periodontal diseases were observed from 43.2% of the total elderly and much from the lower age. Most of oral disease can be prevented by right oral health behavior. Therefore through oral health professionals from each district public health center of the nation, oral health education for the elderly about right eating habits and oral health care should be carried out systematically and policy change to increase access to dental service is required lest that visiting a dental clinic should be impossible or oral health behaviors such as oral prophylaxis and denture wearing should be neglected by economic, geographical barriers. Also, to establish SEM to explain the relationship between oral health status and systemic health, more accurate test methods and effective index development should be preceded. Because items developed by National Health Insurance Corporation applied to this study without alteration, structuring a model had the uppermost limit. Continual study seems to be needed.

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A Study on Product Empowerment of Medical Tourism Using Conjoint Analysis (컨조인트 분석을 이용한 의료관광 상품역량강화에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Kyung Hoon;Yu, Jae Har;Lee, Chun Su
    • International Commerce and Information Review
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.307-329
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    • 2014
  • Medical tourism involves patients intentionally leaving their home country to access non-emergency health care services abroad. Growth in the popularity of this practice has resulted in a significant amount of attention being given to it from researchers, policy-makers, and the media. Yet, there has been little effort to systematically synthesize what is known about the effects of this phenomenon and key choice factors. This study seeks to figure out, using conjoint analysis, what factors Chinese medical tourists place importance on maximizing utility when selecting their destination and propose selection attributes that can lure medical tourists to Korea. Results showed that, of destination attributes, medical technology competitiveness proved be the most important and of lower levels, international accreditation proved to have the highest utility. This article presents the findings of valuable insights to medical institutions, travel agencies and related firms in their marketing activities.

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Effects of Grandparenting Roles and Generativity on Depression among Grandmothers Providing Care for Grandchildren (손자녀를 돌보는 조모의 역할특성과 생성감이 노년기 우울감에 미치는 영향)

  • Song, Seueng-Min;Cha, Seung-Eun;Choi, Young-Hee;Jung, Yunkyong
    • The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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    • v.26 no.2
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    • pp.387-403
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    • 2015
  • This study examines the relationships between grandparenting roles, elderly generativity, and depressive symptoms. Data were collected from 129 grandmothers who helped raise grandchildren attending daycare centers. Grandparenting roles were assessed as generational transferers, caretakers, emotional supporters, and educators. Elderly generativity and depressive symptoms were evaluated based on the Loyola Generativity Scale and CES-D (Center for Epidemiological Studies on Depression Scale), respectively. Data were analyzed using t-test, ANOVA, and regression analysis methods. According to the results, grandmothers were most likely to play a role as caretakers, and there were differences across factors correlated with grandparenting roles. More specifically, daily hours spent on grandparenting and years of grandparenting were related to the caretaker role, and a high level of education was related to the educator role. Poor health was correlated with the generational initiator role. According to correlation and regression analyses, grandmothers who had access to more economic resources and who served as educators, emotional supporters, or generation initiators were more likely to show generativity. In addition, the higher the generativity, the less likely the depressive symptom was. These results have important implications for developing programs that can help grandparents raise preschool-aged grandchildren and suggest some interesting avenues for future research.

Marketing Activities and Financial Performance of Korean Hospitals (우리나라 병원의 마케팅 활동수준과 재무성과)

  • Han, Chang-Hoon;Kim, Won-Joong
    • Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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    • v.4 no.2
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    • pp.106-130
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    • 1999
  • The main objective of this paper is to perform an empirical analysis on the relationship between various marketing activities and financial performance of Korean hospitals. A survey was conducted through structured questionnaire for 495 hospitals, and data from 218 hospitals were utilized in the final anaylsis.(response rate: 44%) Survey items include general characteristics of the hospitals(size, type, location), degree of competition, financial performance. marketing organization! budget, and level of various marketing activities in service development, access improvement, promotion, and pricing. We examine descriptive statistics of the response scores on marketing activities to evaluate the current status of marketing management of Korean hospitals, compare the results across hospital size, type and location, and perform regression analysis to investigate the relaionship between marketing and financial performance. Major findings are as follows: 1) About 46% of the responding hospitals have marketing departments although they are named as 'planning' or 'PR' departments, and the marketing budget on average represents 1.74% of the total expenditures. 2) Average level of marketing activities is calculated to be about 3.32 on 5-point scale, meaning that Korean hospitals implement their marketing programs 'somewhat actively'; however, the scores on the areas of marketing plannning and strategy are relatively low. 3) Large hospitals tend to be more active in marketing than small hospitals, and public hospitals' activities in marketing are not lower compared to private hospitals. 4) Level of overall marketing activities is positively related with financial performance measured by various finacial indicators except for profitability, implying that marketing is successful in revenue generation but needs to be more cost-effective. Also, when the marketing variables are separately included in the regression, no significant relationship is found, which means that various marketing activities are more effective when they are collectively implemented.

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A Study on Countermeasures of Convergence for Big Data and Security Threats to Attack DRDoS in U-Healthcare Device (U-Healthcare 기기에서 DRDoS공격 보안위협과 Big Data를 융합한 대응방안 연구)

  • Hur, Yun-A;Lee, Keun-Ho
    • Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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    • v.6 no.4
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    • pp.243-248
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    • 2015
  • U-Healthcare is a convergence service with medical care and IT which enables to examine, manage and maintain the patient's health any time and any place. For communication conducted in U-Healthcare service, the transmission methods are used that patient's medical checkup analysis results or emergency data are transmitted to hospital server using wireless communication method. At this moment when the attacker who executes the malicious access makes DRDoS(Distributed Reflection DoS) attack to U-Healthcare devices or BS(Base Station), various damages occur that contextual information of urgent patients are not transmitted to hospital server. In order to deal with this problem, this study suggests DRDoS attack scenario and countermeasures against DRDoS and converges with Big Data which could process large amount of packets. When the attacker attacks U-Healthcare devices or BS(Base Station), DB is interconnected and the attack is prevented if it is coincident. This study analyzes the attack method that could occur in U-Healthcare devices or BS which are remote medical service and suggests countermeasures against the security threat using Big Data.

Thoracic Scoliosis in Patients with Primary Spontaneous Pneumothorax

  • Lee, Yeiwon;Kim, Young Jin;Ryu, Han Young;Ku, Gwan Woo;Sung, Tae Yun;Yoon, Yoo Sang;Kim, Tae-Kyun
    • Journal of Chest Surgery
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    • v.51 no.4
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    • pp.254-259
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    • 2018
  • Background: Primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP) affects patients without clinically apparent lung disorder found in tall and thin young male. Scoliosis refers to curves exceeding $10^{\circ}$ Cobb angle observed through chest X-ray and affects 2% to 4% of adolescents. Both conditions are commonly encountered in primary health care setting. The aim of this study is to access the correlation of thoracic scoliosis and PSP in adolescent. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted for patients diagnosed for PSP in Konyang University Hospital between January 2010 and March 2017. Chest X-rays of 222 patients and 155 normal control (NC) cases were reviewed to measure the Cobb angle. Greater than $10^{\circ}$ of Cobb angle is diagnosed as scoliosis. Results: Scoliosis in patient with PSP has higher incidence than that of NC group (p<0.001). Median value of Cobb angle is $12.9^{\circ}$ in PSP group and $14.7^{\circ}$ in NC group. Directional relationship between scoliosis and pneumothorax in PSP group is also observed; 40.5% cases are ipsilateral and 59.5% are contralateral. Conclusion: PSP patients tend to have thoracic scoliosis more commonly compared with normal healthy adolescent. Scoliosis may contribute to heterogeneity of alveolar pressure which exacerbates subpleural bleb formation that can cause pneumothorax. The causal relationship is unclear and further studies are needed in the future.

A Design and Implementation of Physiological Data Measurement System using Ubiquitous Sensor Network (유비쿼터스 센서 네트워크를 이용한 생리학적 데이터 측정 시스템의 설계 및 구현)

  • Min, Gyeong-Woo;Seo, Jung-Hee;Park, Hung-Bog
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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    • 2010.05a
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    • pp.852-855
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    • 2010
  • Based on the rapid development of the computer network technology, the ubiquitous sensor network (USN) was developed to enable us to have access to the communication environment anywhere and anytime without the need for recognizing computers or networks. Moreover, with the increasingly high interest on individual health, the USN technology is being applied to diverse sectors for healthcare and disease prevention. In this paper, a system was designed and implemented using the USN-based RF communication for doctors and nurses who care patients in the hospital to easily measure and control the physiological data on blood pressure and blood sugar. In addition, a database was designed using MS SQL database to store and manage the blood pressure and blood sugar data, which were passively or actively measured from patients. Using the results of this study, the physiological data of patients can be managed in real time and emergency situation can be instantly addressed. It is expected that the healthcare service can be improved and the paradigm of healthcare service environment can be changed.

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Effects of Altered Calcium Metabolism on Cardiac Parameters in Primary Aldosteronism

  • Lim, Jung Soo;Hong, Namki;Park, Sungha;Park, Sung Il;Oh, Young Taik;Yu, Min Heui;Lim, Pil Yong;Rhee, Yumie
    • Endocrinology and Metabolism
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    • v.33 no.4
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    • pp.485-492
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    • 2018
  • Background: Increasing evidence supports interplay between aldosterone and parathyroid hormone (PTH), which may aggravate cardiovascular complications in various heart diseases. Negative structural cardiovascular remodeling by primary aldosteronism (PA) is also suspected to be associated with changes in calcium levels. However, to date, few clinical studies have examined how changes in calcium and PTH levels influence cardiovascular outcomes in PA patients. Therefore, we investigated the impact of altered calcium homeostasis caused by excessive aldosterone on cardiovascular parameters in patients with PA. Methods: Forty-two patients (mean age $48.8{\pm}10.9$ years; 1:1, male:female) whose plasma aldosterone concentration/plasma renin activity ratio was more than 30 were selected among those who had visited Severance Hospital from 2010 to 2014. All patients underwent adrenal venous sampling with complete access to both adrenal veins. Results: The prevalence of unilateral adrenal adenoma (54.8%) was similar to that of bilateral adrenal hyperplasia. Mean serum corrected calcium level was $8.9{\pm}0.3mg/dL$ (range, 8.3 to 9.9). The corrected calcium level had a negative linear correlation with left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVEDD, ${\rho}=-0.424$, P=0.031). Moreover, multivariable regression analysis showed that the corrected calcium level was marginally associated with the LVEDD and corrected QT (QTc) interval (${\beta}=-0.366$, P=0.068 and ${\beta}=-0.252$, P=0.070, respectively). Conclusion: Aldosterone-mediated hypercalciuria and subsequent hypocalcemia may be partly involved in the development of cardiac remodeling as well as a prolonged QTc interval, in subjects with PA, thereby triggering deleterious effects on target organs additively.

Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Targeting Actin DNA of Trichomonas vaginalis

  • Goo, Youn-Kyoung;Shin, Won-Sik;Yang, Hye-Won;Joo, So-Young;Song, Su-Min;Ryu, Jae-Sook;Kong, Hyun-Hee;Lee, Won-Ki;Chung, Dong-Il;Hong, Yeonchul
    • Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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    • v.54 no.3
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    • pp.329-334
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    • 2016
  • Trichomoniasis caused by Trichomonas vaginalis is a common sexually transmitted disease. Its association with several health problems, including preterm birth, pelvic inflammatory disease, cervical cancer, and transmission of human immunodeficiency virus, emphasizes the importance of improved access to early and accurate detection of T. vaginalis. In this study, a rapid and efficient loop-mediated isothermal amplification-based method for the detection of T. vaginalis was developed and validated, using vaginal swab specimens from subjects suspected to have trichomoniasis. The LAMP assay targeting the actin gene was highly sensitive with detection limits of 1 trichomonad and 1 pg of T. vaginalis DNA per reaction, and specifically amplified the target gene only from T. vaginalis. Validation of this assay showed that it had the highest sensitivity and better agreement with PCR (used as the gold standard) compared to microscopy and multiplex PCR. This study showed that the LAMP assay, targeting the actin gene, could be used to diagnose early infections of T. vaginalis. Thus, we have provided an alternative molecular diagnostic tool and a point-of-care test that may help to prevent trichomoniasis transmission and associated complications.

Optimized implementation of HIGHT algorithm for sensor network (센서네트워크에 적용가능한 HIGHT 알고리즘의 최적화 구현 기법)

  • Seo, Hwa-Jeong;Kim, Ho-Won
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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    • v.15 no.7
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    • pp.1510-1516
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    • 2011
  • As emergence of the ubiquitous society, it is possible to access the network for services needed to us in anytime and anywhere. The phenomena has been accelerated by revitalization of the sensor network offering the sensing information and data. Currently, sensor network contributes the convenience for various services such as environment monitoring, health care and home automation. However, sensor network has a weak point compared to traditional network, which is easily exposed to attacker. For this reason, messages communicated over the sensor network, are encrypted with symmetric key and transmitted. A number of symmetric cryptography algorithms have been researched. Among of them HIGHT algorithm in hardware and software implementation are more efficient than tradition AES in terms of speed and chip size. Therefore, it is suitable to resource constrained devices including RFID tag, Sensor node and Smart card. In the paper, we present the optimized software implementation on the ultra-light symmetric cryptography algorithm, HIGHT.