• Health Policy and Management
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• 제33권2호
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• pp.203-213
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• 2023

This study examined the trend of healthcare status and compared the status of South Korea and other member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) using the OECD health statistics 2022. We used the OECD health statistics from 2022 and a position value for relative comparison (PARC) index to compare the five elements of the healthcare system. The study also used a Mann-Kendall test to analyze the trend of the PARC values from 2000 to the present year. The findings of the study indicate that many South Korea's PARC values were higher than the OECD median. But practicing physician in supply part and medical cost were lower than OECD median but the trend significantly increased. Medical accessibility part and quality of care part except primary care, and mental health had a high relative position but the trend did not increased significantly. After outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019, there were changes in medical accessibility. Health screening and vaccinations showed an overall decline in 2020 compared to 2019. These results suggest that policymakers need to take necessary steps for a sustainable healthcare system in the country.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• 제25권2호
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• pp.413-425
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• 2000

The purpose of this study was to compare the health services information need between urban area and rural area in Sooncheon City. For accomplishing this purpose, we selected 1,060 adults randomly, 744 urban residents and 314 rural residents were surveyed from 1st, December to 31st, December in 1999. Compared the difference between two areas by cross tabulation, and chi-square test were used. The results of this study are as follows: 1. There were statistically difference in sociodemographic characteristics between urban residents and rural residents, such as age, education, job, income, and insurance payment(p<0.001). 2. According to the health utilization behavior, types of health facility, satisfaction of medical cost, and satisfaction of medical results were statistically different between the two areas(p<0.001). Also utilization of the health service center, and accessibility were statistically different between urban and rural areas(p<0.001). 3. Experiencing the health service information, type of health service information, methods of information, effectiveness, and satisfaction were statistically different between the two areas(p<0.001). 4. And experience of using computer, and internet and preference of method of health service information were statistically different between urban and rural areas. Therefore, the construction of health information system should be carefully reviewed by community health service centers and they should consider the different residents information needs, and accessibility and convenience of community residents.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• 제23권4호
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• pp.252-255
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• 2020

This article aims to discuss the barriers hindering cancer patients from receiving early palliative care, which has been demonstrated to be more effective in improving quality of life and controlling symptoms. Specifically, there are barriers in four aspects of delivering early palliative care. First, the difficulty of starting discussions about early palliative care and the lack of adequate appointment time can impede communication between oncologists and patients and their family members. Second, determining the timing of referral and deciding upon and applying a standard for referral can be barriers in the process of referral from oncology to palliative care. Third, palliative care patients and their family members can face difficulties regarding in what format and by whom the services will be delivered. Fourth, biases, misinformation, and inaccurate beliefs can be barriers in the process of patients and their family members accepting care. In order to facilitate early palliative care, research and policy regarding these barriers are necessary, along with efforts made by medical staff.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• 제26권4호
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• pp.283-304
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to identify Web accessibility issues of healthcare websites of the Korean government and public agencies by evaluating these websites' accessibility in accordance with the Korean Web Contents Accessibility Guideline. This study conducted both automated and expert testing to assess the accessibility of a total of 27 health-related websites. The results of the assessment which was conducted in two stages indicated that institutions such as the National Hospital and National Rehabilitation Center demonstrated almost no Web accessibility error. In addition, the Korea Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Health Services Agency, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency attained very high web accessibility. However, the results of an expert evaluation highlighted that there were considerable errors in providing appropriate alternative text, which was not found in the automated test, and the color contrast of the text content did not comply with Web accessibility standard. Therefore, these websites did not support web accessibility for the sight-impaired. Furthermore, the present study found that it was difficult to deliver accurate information to users due to errors in the default language display and markup, and also, issues of skipping repeated content, content linearization, and compliance with keyboard use were considered as challenges that might arise for people with sight, cognitive and mobility impairments with respect to Web accessibility. It is the first study that evaluated accessibility of healthcare websites of the Korean government and public agencies based on the Korean Web Contents Accessibility Guideline. The present study made a contribution to research on Web accessibility by conducting expert testing, which provided a more complete assessment that identified the degree and specific issues of accessibility errors when compared to automated testing.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제37권3호
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• pp.267-273
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• 2004

Objectives : This study was aimed at investigating the medical service utilization pattern of patients who use public medical aid compared to those who have health insurance. Methods : We selected every patient between the age of 18 and 69 who used public medical aid from January 1, 1999, to December 31, 2001, in Gwangju metropolitan city, South Korea. For comparison, a list of patients with health insurance was gathered for same period. Then the medical records of those who had been hospitalized for acute appendicitis were selected among both groups. Of those records, we compared the number of cases of ruptured appendicitis to cases of whole acute appendicitis in both groups. Regarding coding for ruptured appendicitis, International Classification of Diseases - 10 (ICD-10) was used. Multiple logistic regression was used as a statistical tool to determine the effectiveness of risk factors. Results : Even after adjusting for risk factors, such as age and sex, the proportion of perforation of acute appendicitis among public medical aid patients was found to be significantly higher than among insured patients. Conclusions : This comparative study on ruptured appendicitis among public medical aid patients and insured patients, indicates that the proportion of perforation of acute appendicitis could be an index showing that these types of patients utilize medical services differently than insured patients. We know that when abdominal pain is not properly treated at the outset, it easily develops into ruptured appendicitis complicated with peritonitis. Considering this data analysis, we guess the public medical aid system to have significant problem with medical accessibility. So additional and systematic research on the pattern of utilization of medical services of public medical aid patients is needed.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• 제10권5호
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• pp.289-299
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• 2012

The study was carried out to provide basic data of improving the accessibility of medical service through identifying the factors that make hospital injury inpatient in non-residential area not in their residential area in Gyeongsangnam-do. This study analyzed not only 8,225 cases of discharged patients with damages from 2008, provided by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but also using a census and a research data on the actual condition from health care system. This study conducted a frequency test, a chi-square test and a logistic regression In result, first, the centralization of medical utilization of patients with damages is apparent centrally the city area. Second, medical utilization of injury patients in non-residential areas were significantly higher local area compared to City area. To improve this, a policy that can not only provide medical centers and sickbed, but also improve the quality of local medical treatments for the localization of medical treatments, for the accessibility of medical services, government is demanded policy for patients with damages in local area.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• 제13권5호
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• pp.297-307
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• 2015

This study reviews equipped with enhanced capability of medical care, quality service, accessibility, and consumer awareness to be a competitive and representative local healthcare service provider with improved administrative efficiency. The method of analysis are ANOVA and Structural Equation Modeling. The results which revealed the significant difference among demographic factors in determining the preference or degree of satisfaction at medical service to select local healthcare institutions suggest that the close review on the needs of groups of major customers of local healthcare institutions are necessary when preparing the strategy of specialized medical service of local healthcare institutions. this suggests that both images would be important factors to secure the competitive advantage of local healthcare institution and therefore the strategy maximized the enhancement of medical service with embossed image of hospital to attract customers of medical service is needed.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.41-78
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• 2007

Due to the concern of regional unbalance relating to healthcare resources, the government has set up a plan to expand public healthcare services and a policy to manage the supply of hospital beds. However, it is not clear what standards are needed to measure the degree of unbalance, and to what extent the gap needs to be narrowed. Unlike the previous methodology comparing the proportions of patients who move out from their administrative district to receive medical services, this study examines the inconvenience gap patients experience when they have to move out from their actual living area. The logit and multinomial logit models are employed. The regional unbalance decreases when the degree of movement is measured based on the living area. This result implies that essential standard for achieving regional balance relating to medical services need to be based not on the even distribution of medical resources, but the complications of regional people that require proper medical services.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.9-35
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• 2007

The Health care program in Korea has now been systemized after 30 years of declaring the inauguration of the national health insurance system by the current government. The national health care covering all Korean citizens was achieved after 12 years of implementing the national health insurance and the health care program since 1977. Hundreds of multiple operational agencies managing the insured individually had undergone the amalgamation process from 1998 to 2000, and had been restructured as one agency, the National Health Insurance Corporation. In 2003, the community/area based financial management was also merged together with the employment based financial management. The National health care system of Korea offer various merits, compared with that of other countries, such as health care provision covering all Koreans, low insurance premium, accessibility of medical services/facilities etc. However, there are still some weak features which need to be addressed for improvement; below expectation insurance cover system, mistrust on the medical services, low medical charges resulted from excessive restrictions, and unstable financial status of the national health insurance etc. Therefore, the National health care system should continue to evolve to re-establish itself as more effective national health care system by further strengthening its merits, and by improving its weaknesses; with adopting the positive system to optimize the costs of prescribed medicines/drugs, applying simpler insurance coverage system to calculate the optimum medical charges, promoting private medical insurances, and increasing insurance premium etc.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• 제22권4호
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• pp.1-11
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• 2016

Public transportation is public service that is contributed to the convenience of the public. However, opportunity for public services in rural areas is weaker than the chance in urban areas. The purpose of this study is to evaluate accessibility of various public facilities using public transportation. To evaluate the accessibility, we calculate the various time from community center to the nearest bus stop, walking time, riding time in bus, and waiting time for transfer. The results of this study ares as follows; (1) Villages occupy 19.8% in rural areas that walking time from community center to the nearest bus stop takes over 10 minutes in integrated Chungju-si; (2) The average speed is 21.9 km/hr estimated to departure and arrival time of bus route; (3) The accessibility time from community center using the average bus speed takes 15.43 minutes to public facilities, 35.15 minutes to emergency center, 8.70 minutes to medical center, 9.70 minutes to elementary school, 16.26 minutes to middle school, and 22.61 minutes high school; (4) The transfer time of public transportation takes 13.46, 21.96, 10.48, 7.78, 11.11, 16.10 minutes to public facilities, emergency center, medical center, elementary school, middle school, and high school, respectively; (4) Traffic accessibility using bus vehicles in the East and South Chungju-si is lower than areas in the West and North Chungju-si. Some villages surrounding public offices (eup-myeon office) which have a high density of population, indicate a high traffic accessibility.