• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.225-237
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• 2019

Recently, it has been argued that it is necessary to attract foreign patients outside domestic insurers and to allow foreign doctors to treat in domestic hospitals in order to develop the insurance industry and revitalize the medical industry. Currently, large medical institutions in Korea are attracting foreign patients in connection with foreign insurance companies. It is desirable to increase the number of overseas patients who want excellent medical services in Korea, and to provide opportunities for domestic insurance companies to attract overseas patients by expanding job creation through a revitalization of the medical industry. Therefore, this study suggests the development direction for insurers who aim to attract foreign patients through the side effects of attracting foreign patients in accordance with the Financial Services Commission's plan to strengthen the competitiveness of the financial industry. In addition, this study intends to contribute to the strengthening of the competitiveness of attracting foreign patients, through domestic insurance business, to the insurance direct payment market for overseas patients using domestic medical institutions that are concentrated in foreign insurance companies and in the blind spot of domestic law application.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.111-128
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• 2016

Trade between nations has been considered as exchange for material things. According to recent changes in the paradigm of global trade, trade is shifting focus on the exchange of an immaterial being. Among them, the service sector is growing fast and the health service has shown exceptional growth as the healthcare market is consistently expanding. It is also part of the global service targeting people all around the world. People visiting other countries for medical service tend to spend more money and stay longer than a traveler. For these reasons, global medical service is in the spotlight as a promising and higher value-added business. The global medical service industry has been developed around Asia, specifically Thailand, Singapore, India, etc. Compared to them, Korea has come late into the market of global healthcare and the Korean government is striving to attract foreign patients. Nevertheless, there is a lack of effort to make foreign patients visiting Korea revisit Korea. Regarding foreign patients' medical disputes, these are not yet a problem officially; however, the government cannot leave the matter as it is. Medical dispute related with foreign patients is a highly complex issue due to different languages, nationalities, cultures, etc. Particularly, Korea's medical tourism is developed with Chinese visiting Korea for plastic surgery and cosmetic procedure. Thus, the Korean medical tourism market can be crowded with a lot of minor medical agencies, so-called brokers, getting foreign patients connected to the medical institutions. Consequently, Korea has received a large number of complaints and dissatisfaction. No one can predict and know what's supposed to happen in the future. Efforts of the Korean government and medical institute attracting foreign patients could be in vain. In order to take a step forward, this paper will do research on present conditions and look for strategies of improving this industry, focusing on the part of medical agency and contributing to the improvement of the Korean medical tourism industry.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.73-87
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• 2016

Activation Plan for International Health Care through the Resolution of Medical Disputes with Foreign Patients. The field of international health care is currently being expanded and developed into the new industrial field of medical tourism through the convergence of medicine - a public sector - and tourism - a private sector. This study examines problems with medical law regarding the prevention of medical disputes that may occur when attracting foreign patients and the resolution of these disputes. It also introduces the current most ideal resolution plan for medical disputes. Advanced measures for the prevention of medical disputes with foreign patients are as follows: First, when conducting international health care, the obligation to explain a medical treatment should be applied at higher standards for foreign patients. Second, all medical treatment procedures, including appointments, treatments, discharge, post-operation consultations, and follow-up treatments of foreign patients should be charted and recorded. A checklist regarding precautions for each procedure along with a response manual for problems should also be established. These regulations can prevent unexpected conflicts in advance when medical disputes occur. If a medical dispute with a foreign patient occurs despite thorough advance prevention, it can be resolved through reconciliation, mediation, and arbitration. The government and the medical field along with its related industries and authorities should put their efforts into developing these priori/posteriori measures for the activation of international medical health care. The laws and technological/human capabilities in medicine should also be improved in order to activate international medical health care.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.58-70
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine the preparation of medical institutions for medical tourism and its effects. The sample of this study were 99 case which were selected from Korea Health Industry Development Institute list. Data were collected through the mail questionnaire survey from Sept. 15 to Oct. 30 in 2010. The collected data were analyzed using Chisquare test, t-test. The main findings of study are as follows: Using Chisquare test, we found statistically significant differences in resources prepared for medical tourism between hospitals and clinics. In general, hospitals were well prepared in human resources(e.g., proportion of employees with foreign language capability) and physical resources(e.g., helpdesk, brochures) compared to clinics.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.577-582
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• 2021

This study was conducted to find ways to restore the domestic medical tourism industry, which was seriously hit by a sharp drop in foreign patients after the COVID-19 Pandemic. Kendall's W verification was used by asking expert panel for keyword advice by ranking. The conclusion of the study is that institutions attracting foreign patients need an opportunity to turn the crisis situation into an opportunity by expanding treatment for severe foreign patients. In addition, it is possible to gain familiarity and trust in hospitals in situations where it is difficult to visit overseas through virtual and augmented reality, and to prevent the risk of infection and protect patients in the untact era. In addition, the blockchain can maintain patient information supplementation, share it safely, minimize customer inconvenience by using payment means using virtual currency, and finally, smart healthcare can manage and provide information to patients regardless of location.

• Korea Science and Art Forum
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.87-97
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• 2019

The study began in recent years with the aim of grasping the nation's medical status following the fast-growing trend of international medical tourism and attracting foreign patients, among other things, Busan, which ranks second in attracting foreign patients after the nation's capital, Seoul, has been highly active in the past eight years, with foreign patients rising by about 426 percent, and Russian patients entering the sea. In addition, Gimhae and Changwon, the Busan-based Gyeongsangnam-do region, ranked first and second in number of foreign residents, and are inhabited by a variety of foreign workers. Medical institutions, such as hospitals, should be able to find directions within hospitals. It is also a space where information in various languages, including Korean, English, Chinese, or Russian, must be delivered in a single medium. Based on this research, the purpose of this research is to provide converged information that helps foreigners who are not familiar with Korean language easily understand the proposed recognition system when visiting hospitals. Therefore, this paper is applied to a multi-language survey of six medical institutions (A, B, C, D, E, F) at the university hospital in Busan, and 10 medical institutions (R, J) in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province with high foreign residents. Research results and contents are as follows. First, the results of analyzing the design of the sinusoidal system show that the font uses colorless Gothic fonts, arrows, and pictograms to introduce the design of a typical hospital sign system. Second, the results of the multi-lingual situation were found to have only two languages in the system, such as Korean and English, and to have four languages, including Korean, English, Chinese, and Russian, according to their geographical location. However, it was judged that most medical institutions currently have only two languages (Korean, English) that may cause some discomfort in terms of language for foreign patients in non-English speaking countries. Based on these findings, it is necessary to propose designs that are considered by Koreans as well as foreign users in the use of multilingual hospital sign systems.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.288-293
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• 2018

In 1994 Korea government began to develop the healthcare industry, since then the government has tried to create opportunities to promote the industry through various political efforts and policies. The biggest achievement was attracting foreign patients from 2009 to 2016 with a cumulative 1.56 million and total revenue of 3 trillion won. But Korea still loses the opportunity to become a global leader in the health care industry due to regulations and various ideological disputes. Accordingly, it is necessary to facilitate policy understanding and present a practical road map so that Korea's healthcare industry become a new growth engine that will lead the trend of global market in the future. It also suggests a national economic development paradigm, the health economy as health and economic value are rotated through a shift in view of health care. At this point, 20 years after the beginning of the healthcare industry development, it is necessary to evaluate the related policies and discuss effective future directions. In this sense, the purpose of this study is to examine the policies and limitations of the healthcare industry by each government division, and based on it, to propose political tasks for the future.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.249-253
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• 2020

Medical tourism refers to visiting overseas to receive medical services and tourism at the same time. In other words, it can be said that it is a tourism activity that combines medical service, various cultural activities, leisure, and shopping. As such, medical tourism is not limited to simple medical services, but is a new high-value-added industry that creates new profits by fusion with tourism services. Many countries are making continuous efforts to foster their own tourism industry by attracting foreign tourists. Therefore, in order to secure competitiveness in dental services among the medical tourism industry in Korea, this study was to examine the relationship between dentist's treatment, hospital facilities, dental staff, and patient satisfaction. As a result, it was found that the dentist's treatment had a positive effect on both the staff of the dental facility in the hospital and the satisfaction of the patient.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.67-76
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• 2018

Purpose - With the worldwide aging problem and the development of globalization, customers prefer to seek affordable medical services with the higher quality overseas. This new trend has urged some destination countries to improve their services for the more competitive advantages over other countries. Literature research indicate that medical quality and cost may be the key factors influencing global patients' decisions. In the international environment, however, medical tourism destinations are selected due to cultural similarity between the hosting country and the customers' own country. The more similarity perceived between the two countries leads foreign patients to choose the considering country as the destination for medical tourism. However, little research has been conducted on this topic. Thus, we empirically investigate how cultural similarity influences Chinese medical customers' choice of the destinations. We also consider the factors related to medical competency and travel attribute which might affect customers' decisions along with some moderating roles of disease types. Research design, data, and methodology - We proposed a research model in order to confirm the relations among different variables of cultural similarity, medical competency, travel attractiveness, disease types, and destination choice. The questionnaire survey is processed in the more economically developed regions of China such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Jiangsu. Conditional logit regression is applied to analyze the data of 881. Results - Results indicate that cultural similarity is the important predictor of Chinese customers' decision to select a medical country. However, the effects of cultural similarity vary according to the disease types. We also find that medical competency and travel attractiveness influence their decisions with the moderating role of disease types. Conclusions - Cultural similarity is the important factor that influences Chinese potential medical tourists' decisions to select a destination. Marketing managers should consider the effects of cultural similarity when developing strategies for attracting Chinese medical tourists. Since medical competency and travel attractiveness are still the critical key elements for them to evaluate the destination countries, it is necessary to continuously improve medical service quality and facilities. The results also recommend that medical managers should sharpen their marketing strategies by segmenting Chinese potential customers in terms of disease types.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.20 no.11
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• pp.175-181
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• 2015

In this paper, based on the reference, we try to review the second issues about opening medical market and health care privatization by each topic and propose the measures and alternatives. Currently, in Korea, connection with launch of the WTO system and force of the FTA, the medical industries getting liberalization and globalization. Thus, it is expected to plunge to full-free competition system, and Korean medical institutions started the global competition which completely different dimension. It means that according to the liberalization of the healthcare market the real problem can be caused and also, the incessant discussion and effort for the implementation of international community are needed. Regard to attracting foreign patients and opening medical markets, the government also spreading the continued advancement strategy politically until now. However, generating problems with implication is inevitable and measures and alternatives to it are also needed. In accordance with the opening, the accompanying suggestions is medical privatization, that is, whether the health care pursue the profit not the not-for-profit and the current hospitals in Korea they are leaved as non-profit hospitals and let the make the subsidiary as general commercial enterprises, it seems indirect. However, it is like a healthcare privatization virtually thus, implication seem be large. Of course, through the public opinion and legal reservation, the liberalization and privatization of medical market can be delayed or not forced. It would be not fit in the flow of the inevitable globalization, it can be inhibited national interest and economic development also, and it can be the critical implications which shake the health system and collapse of the domestic health care market.