• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.295-305
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was conducted to evaluate the economic efficiency of a community-based nursing care center to help policy makers determine whether or not to invest in similar facilities. Methods: The subjects were 101 elderly people over 65 years who participated in a health management program from February 1 to July 31, 2007. Direct cost was estimated with center operations cost, medical cost for out-patients and pharmacy cost. Indirect cost was measured by transportation cost. Direct benefit was calculated by saved medical cost for out-patients, saved pharmacy cost, saved transportation cost, and reducing hospital charges. Indirect benefit was estimated with prevention of severe complications. Economic efficiency was evaluated by cost-benefit ratio and net benefit. Results: Operating a community-based nursing care center was found to be cost-effective. Specifically, the cost of operating the center evaluated here was estimated at 135 million won while the benefit was estimated at 187 million won. Benefit-cost ratio was 1.38. Conclusion: The Community-based nursing care center that was described here could be a useful health care delivery system for reducing medical expenditures.

• IE interfaces
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.353-362
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• 2007

This paper proposed the calculation method of the avoided cost for natural gas and district heating DSM programs. And the proposed method is applied to real DSM programs. The avoided cost for natural gas consists of commodity avoided cost, supply equipment avoided cost, storage equipment avoided cost, and electric power avoided cost. In case of the district heating, avoided cost consists of heat generation equipment avoided cost, heat energy avoided cost, environment avoided cost, and electric power avoided cost. This method can be used to evaluate the benefit of DSM programs quantitatively in cost. Therefore, this method can contribute to make the cost-effectiveness evaluation system and to operate the DSM programs for natural gas and district heating effectively.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.30-37
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• 2000

Existing tree construction mechanisms are classified into source-based trees and center-based trees. The source-based trees produce a source-rooted tree with a low delay. However, for the applications with multiple senders, the management overheads for routing tables and resource reservations are too high. The center-based trees are easy to implement and manage, but a priori configuration of candidate center nodes is required, and the optimization mature such as tree cost and delay is not considered. In this paper, we propose a new multicast tree building algorithm. The proposal algorithm basically builds a non-center based shared tree. In particular, any center node is not pre-configured. In the purposed algorithm, a multicast node among current tree nodes is suitably assigned to each incoming user: Such a node is selected in a fashion that tree cost and the maximum end-to-end delay on the tree are jointly minimized. The existing and proposed algorithms are compared by experiments. In the simulation results, it is shown that the proposed algorithm approximately provides the cost saving of 30% and the delay saving of 10%, compared to the existing approaches. In conclusion, we see that the cost and delay aspects for multicast trees can be improved at the cost of additional computations.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.23-48
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to provide criteria which help executives to make decisions through the analysis of profitability of ultrasonography conducted in each medical department. In order to achieve such purpose, the study conducted break-even analyses on three medical departments of a university hospital in which has used ultrasonography was largely conducted in diagnosing diseases and performing surgeries. The research was carried out from January to June 2008. The data necessary for calculating cost, were collected using by computerized data. The results of the study were summarized as follows. 1. The Cost structure of each medical department: The Cost of ultrasonography was divided into direct cost and indirect cost through the categorization by cost object. Labor cost accounted for the largest portion of the direct cost with 69.3% in the department of obstetrics and gynecology, 67.4% in the department of radiology and 58.2% in the cardiac ultrasonography center, which followed by the depreciation cost of ultrasonography equipment. The calculation of the average material cost of each ultrasonographic test by medical test found that the cardiac ultrasonography center took first place with 2,355 won, followed by the department of obstetrics and gynecology with 266 won and the department of radiology with 233 won. As for the power cost of ultrasonography equipment, the department of radiology took fist place with 442,000 won. The power cost, however, did not affect much the cost price, because it accounted for only a small portion of the cost. As for indirect cost, the cardiac ultrasonography center ranked first with 7,156,000 won. Building depreciation cost accounted for the largest portion of the indirect cost. 2. Break-even analysis: Under the supposition that cost price can be divided into fixed cost and variable cost, a break-even analysis was conducted using the cost price confirmed through the cost structure of each medical department. As for the average customary charge of ultrasonography test conducted in each medical department, the department of obstetrics and gynecology charged 24,627 won, the department of radiology 53,179 won and the cardiac ultrasonography center 65,174 won. According to these results, the charges of ultrasonography test imposed by the department of radiology and the cardiac ultrasonography center wre enough to surpass break-even levels, but the charge imposed by the department of obstetrics and gynecology was not enough to offset the cost price. In conclusion, labor cost accounted for the largest proportion of cost price of ultrasonography test conducted in diagnosing diseases and performing surgeries in medical departments, followed by the fixed cost of ultrasonographic equipment depreciation cost. In medical department where the current charge of ultrasonography test turned out not to offset cost price through the break-even analysis of ultrasonographic equipment, ways to reduce fixed cost which accounts for the largest proportion of the cost price should be sought. Even medical departments whose current charge of ultrasonography test is enough to surpass break-even level are required to work for efficient management and cost reduction to continuously generate profits.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.25-31
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• 2009

In this paper, the implementation of a production control system based on RFID has been studied in order to obtain an exact Cost Center data such as the name of workers included a process of work and a time period to finish the process. The cost center of a worker will be correctly obtained by checking the work time using RFID tag data and by transmitting the data to a server of ERP or POP system. And also warming up time, cleaning time, power failure, and out of order sign will be checked and calculated using the data stored in RFID tags attached in workers and machine facilities. Therefore, exact Cost Center data will be obtained by the production control system with touch screens entering the data according to the situation in real time.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.101-110
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• 2011

Objectives: Screening for colorectal cancer is considered cost effective, but is underutilized in the U.S. Information on the efficiency of "tailored interventions" to promote colorectal cancer screening in primary care settings is limited. The paper reports the results of a cost effectiveness analysis that compared a survey-only control group to a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) web-based intervention (screen for life) and to a tailored interactive computer-based intervention. Methods: A randomized controlled trial of people 50 and over, was conducted to test the interventions. The sample was 1224 partcipants 50-70 years of age, recruited from Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, a large multi-specialty clinic in Houston, Texas. Screening status was obtained by medical chart review after a 12-month follow-up period. An "intention to treat" analysis and micro costing from the patient and provider perspectives were used to estimate the costs and effects. Analysis of statistical uncertainty was conducted using nonparametric bootstrapping. Results: The estimated cost of implementing the web-based intervention was $40 per person and the cost of the tailored intervention was $45 per person. The additional cost per person screened for the web-based intervention compared to no intervention was $2602 and the tailored intervention was no more effective than the web-based strategy. Conclusions: The tailored intervention was less cost-effective than the web-based intervention for colorectal cancer screening promotion. The web-based intervention was less cost-effective than previous studies of in-reach colorectal cancer screening promotion. Researchers need to continue developing and evaluating the effectiveness and costeffectiveness of interventions to increase colorectal cancer screening.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.71-79
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• 2010

This paper addresses capacity expansion planning model of distribution center under usability of public distribution center. For discrete and finite time periods, demands for distribution center increase dynamically. The capacity expansion planning is to determine the capacity expansion size of private distribution center and usage size of public distribution center for each period through the time periods. The capacity expansion of private distribution center or lease usage of public distribution center must be done to satisfy demand increase for distribution center. The costs are capacity expansion cost and excess capacity holding cost of private distribution center, lease usage cost of public distribution center. Capacity expansion planning of minimizing the total costs is mathematically modelled. The properties of optimal solution are characterized and a dynamic programming algorithm is developed. A numerical example is shown to explain the problem.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2001

Purpose of this study is to compare the cost effectiveness of home care services for the cerebrovascular accident patients by the type of institution. The method is the secondary analysis using the patients' charts. 107 subjects and 1.417 visits were sampled from each type of home care institution such as one hospital based home care center. one KNA home care center, one urban health center, one rural health center and one health care post. Result: There were differences in the functional status of patients and the service contents and frequencies provided by the type of home care institution, The cost per visit for one unit of ADL by the hospital based home care was higher than by the community-based home care. Conclusion: It was suggested that the referral system among the home care institutions would be developed to improve the cost-effectiveness.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.81-103
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• 2013

This study is to research cost accounting practice and to analyze propriety of patients' medical payment in artificiality kidney center. The researched cost datum of the year 2012 are as follows. - Hemodialysis medical treatment was reimbursed as much as 158,001 won in case of health insured patients, but payed-off as much as 135,810 won. - The average figure of the total hospitals and clinic center is 1,603,303 won, and one time cost of hemodialysis treatment is 154,487 won. Optimal treatment pay are suggested as follows. First, Regardless of the notified classification from MOHW(Ministry of Health and Welfare), 136,000 won of fixed price payment classification needs to be reclassified by patients, severity and tobe rearranged by fixed price payment system of hospitals. Second, Fixed payment code notified by the Ministry of Health and Welfare is recommended to be simplifies and to reflect according to contents of the medical treatment rendered to patients. Third, Establishment of artificial kidney center has to be risk managed because of its huge investment. Fourth, Cost analysis model has to be maintained as basis together with appropriate application of conversion index model mixed with SGR model.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.19
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• pp.8229-8237
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• 2014

Background: Organized cervical screening has decreased the incidence of cervical cancer. However, screening strategies vary in different countries. Objectives: We performed a systematic review to evaluate the economic aspects of different screening methods. Materials and Methods: We searched databases and then data were abstracted from each study. We evaluated articles based on different types of screening tests as well as screening age and intervals, and using incremental cost effectiveness ratio via calculating quality adjusted life years (QALY), or life years gained (LYG) per cost. We compared the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of each study using GDP per capita. Furthermore, we compared national guidelines with recommendations of cost-effectiveness studies in different countries. Results: A total of 21 articles met our criteria, of which 19 studies showed that HPV DNA testing, 13 suggested an age of 30 years or more, and 10 papers concluded that at least a 5-year or longer interval were the most cost-effective strategies. In some countries, the national guidelines did not match the recommendations of the cost-effectiveness studies. Conclusions: HPV testing, starting at age 30 years or older and repeated at 5-year or longer intervals, is the most cost-effective strategy in any setting. Closer collaboration with health economists is required during guideline development.