• Annals of Laboratory Medicine
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.585-590
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• 2018

Background: Although testing to detect weak D antigens using the antihuman globulin reagent is not required for D- patients in many countries, it is routinely performed in Korea. However, weak D testing can be omitted in D- patients with a C-E- phenotype as this indicates complete deletion of the RHD gene, except in rare cases. We designed a new algorithm for weak D testing, which consisted of RhCE phenotyping followed by weak D testing in C+ or E+ samples, and compared it with the current algorithm with respect to time and cost-effectiveness. Methods: In this retrospective study, 74,889 test results from January to July 2017 in a tertiary hospital in Korea were analyzed. Agreement between the current and proposed algorithms was evaluated, and total number of tests, time required for testing, and test costs were compared. With both algorithms, RHD genotyping was conducted for samples that were C+ or E+ and negative for weak D testing. Results: The algorithms showed perfect agreement (agreement=100%; ${\kappa}=1.00$). By applying the proposed algorithm, 29.56% (115/389 tests/yr) of tests could be omitted, time required for testing could be reduced by 36% (8,672/24,084 min/yr), and the test cost could be reduced by 16.53% (536.11/3,241.08 USD/yr). Conclusions: Our algorithm omitting weak D testing in D- patients with C-E- phenotype may be a cost-effective testing strategy in Korea.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.3-12
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• 2006

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) system is expected to play a critical role providing widespread services in the ubiquitous period. However, widespread use of RFID tags may create new threats to the privacy of individuals such as information leakage and traceability. It is difficult to solve the privacy problems because a tag has the limited computing power that is not the adequate resource to support the general encryption. Although the scheme of [2] protects the consumer privacy using an external agent, a tag should compute exponential operation needed high cost. We propose Self Re-Encryption Protocol (SREP) which provides song privacy without assisting of any external agent. Our SREP is well suitable to low-cost RFID system since it only needs multiplication and exclusive-or operation.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.348-355
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• 2022

Objectives: To compare the vital sign stability and cost of two commonly used sedatives, midazolam (MDZ) and dexmedetomidine (DEX). Patients and Methods: This retrospective study targeted patients who underwent mandibular third molar extractions under intravenous sedation using MDZ or DEX. The predictor variable was the type of sedative used. The primary outcome variables were vital signs (heart rate and blood pressure), vital sign outliers, and cost of the sedatives. A vital sign outlier was defined as a 30% or more change in vital signs during sedation; the fewer changes, the higher the vital sign stability. The secondary outcome variables included the observer's assessment of alertness/sedation scale, level of amnesia, patient satisfaction, and bispectral index score. Covariates were sex, age, body mass index, sleeping time, dental anxiety score, and Pederson scale. Descriptive statistics were computed including propensity score matching (PSM). The P-value was set at 0.05. Results: The study enrolled 185 patients, 103 in the MDZ group and 82 in the DEX group. Based on the data after PSM, the two samples had similar baseline covariates. The sedative effect of both agents was satisfactory. Heart rate outliers were more common with MDZ than with DEX (49.3% vs 22.7%, P=0.001). Heart rate was higher with MDZ (P=0.000). The cost was higher for DEX than for MDZ (29.27±0.00 USD vs 0.37±0.04 USD, P=0.000). Conclusion: DEX showed more vital sign stability, while MDZ was more economical. These results could be used as a reference to guide clinicians during sedative selection.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.56-72
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• 2001

Community mental health management system emphasizing on the rehabilitation and the return to the community has been established and carried out for many years. The study has been demanded to prove that the decreasing rate of the recurrence of the mentally ill resulted to lower their medical costs, to enrich the quality of life, and to reduce the psychological burden of their family. This study tried to prove that the mental health services to the mentally ill which were registered in community mental health center of A city have an influence on the medical cost, the quality of their lives. the family burden. The subject group of this study were 39 home-based mentally ill patients and their 37 family members, totally 76 people registered in mental health center of A city and participated in its program. This research had been measured twice, the first before the intervention and the second after at least a year. The measuring tools in the research were the medical cost measurment tools developed by the researcher, the quality of life index by Yoo ja, Noh(1988) and the family burden by Montgonery(1985). The methods were modified and supplemented in this study. This research made use of SPSS Win 10.0. The results of this study are the same as followings. 1) There were the significant difference in the medical cost before and after the mental health service delivery. 2) The quality of lives of the mentally ill, after the mental health services delivered were significantly higher than before. 3) The family burden were significantly reduced after the delivery of community mental health services. Community mental health services brought out efficient results to the social return and rehabilitation. And these results means that the mentally ill changed highly the quality of life and their burden of family and medical cost were reduced. So the public organization and the private society should help positively the mentally ill and their family through mental health policy and social service agency to live healthy lives and to be valuable member of society.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.18-24
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• 1998

This paper attempts to improve domestic natural gas pricing system, thereby optimizing social welfare. This is done by deriving theoretical frameworks of natural gas pricing, which make use of both Ramsey component pricing rule and Efficient component pricing rule based on the theory of marginal cost. Allocative efficiency and social welfare between gas prices derived from the three pricing mechanism, present Cost-based pricing, Ramsey component pricing rule and Efficient component pricing rule, are analysed and compared in the case study. For the city gas, allocative efficiency of Cost-based pricing is higher than that of Ramsey component pricing rule and Efficient component pricing rule. In contrast, for the natural gas consumed for power generation, allocative efficiency of Cost-based pricing is lower than the other two pricing systems. It also turns out that social welfare is improved by the prices driven from Ramsey component pricing rule and Efficient component pricing rule rather than present Cost-based pricing.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.4329-4334
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• 2013

Background: Cervical cancer, which is common in developing countries, is also a major health issue in Korea. Our aim was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of Korea's National Cancer Screening Program (NCSP), implemented in 1999. Materials and Methods: The target population was Korean women 30 years or over who were invited to take part in the NCSP in 2002-2007. By merging NCSP records with Korean Central Cancer Registry data, patients diagnosed with cervical cancer who had been screened were assigned to a "screened group," while patients diagnosed elsewhere were assigned to a "non-screened group." Clinical outcomes were measured in terms of life-years saved (LYS), derived from 5-year mortality rates supplied by the Korean National Health Insurance Corporation and National Statistical Office. Direct and travel costs associated with screening were evaluated from the perspective of the payer, the NCSP. Results: A diagnosis via screening was associated with 2.30 LYS, and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) estimate for screening was 7,581,679 KW/LYS (6,727 USD/LYS). ICER estimates were lower for older patients (${\geq}$ 50 years) than younger patients (4,047,033 KW/LYS vs 5,680,793 KW/LYS). The proportion of early-stage cancers detected was 16.3% higher in the screened group. Conclusions: In light of Korea's per capita gross domestic product (32,272 USD in 2012), the current NCSP's incremental cost per LYS appears acceptable.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.67-70
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• 2015

To establish an appropriate policy for robotic surgery in Korea, the National Evidence-based Collaborating Agency (NECA) and the Korean Society of Health Policy and Administration held a round-table conference (RTC) to gather opinions through a comprehensive discussion of scientific information in gastric cancer. The NECA RTC is a public discussion forum wherein experts from diverse fields and members of the lay public conduct in-depth discussions on a selected social issue in the health and medical field. For this study, representatives from the medical field, patient groups, industry, the press, and policy makers participated in a discussion focused on the medical and scientific evidence for the use of robotic surgery in gastric cancer. According to the RTC results, robotic surgery showed more favorable results in safety and efficacy than open surgery and it is similar to laparoscopy. When the cost-effectiveness of robotic surgery and laparoscopy is compared, robotic surgery costs are higher but there was no difference between the two of them in terms of effectiveness (pain, quality of life, complications, etc.). In order to resolve the high cost issue of the robotic surgery, a proper policy should be implemented to facilitate the development of a cost-effective model of the robotic surgery equipment. The higher cost of robotic surgery require more evidence of its safety and efficacy as well as the cost-effectiveness issues of this method. Discussions on the national insurance coverage of robotic surgery seems to be necessary in the near future.

• Polymer Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.141-148
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• 2010

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.241-245
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• 2008

Every single company in the world makes a huge amount of effort so as to not only cut down the physical distribution cost but promote the efficiency. In the government's respect, especially, they expect to maximize the synergy by unifying the physical distribution. For that reason, it relevant for all kinds of a distribution strategy to get rid of unnecessary distribution centers and to integrate distribution centers by unifying and rearranging the distribution centers that are hardly efficient. Most enterprises in Japan, related to making and distributive, have got a tendency to decentralize their distribution centers in a wide scope of the whole nation. In the meantime, they seem to get a move to become a great-sphere distribution center. Many similar cases in Korea, Koon-Po distribution center, Yong-In distribution center, are not expected to function properly. With a rate of trading products expanded, a new strategic physical distribution is needed to turn the way of depending on building up a new distribution center into the way of unifying and rearranging a distribution center. Therefore, this study aims to identify the optimal method of unifying and rearranging a distribution center, compared to the cost which takes place in a large number of distribution centers.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.2059-2065
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• 2013

This goal of this research was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the National Cancer Screening Program (NCSP) for breast cancer in the Republic of Korea from a government expenditure perspective. In 2002-2003 (baseline), a total of 8,724,860 women aged 40 years or over were invited to attend breast cancer screening by the NCSP. Those who attended were identified using the NCSP database, and women were divided into two groups, women who attended screening at baseline (screened group) and those who did not (non-screened group). Breast cancer diagnosis in both groups at baseline, and during 5-year follow-up was identified using the Korean Central Cancer Registry. The effectiveness of the NCSP for breast cancer was estimated by comparing 5-year survival and life years saved (LYS) between the screened and the unscreened groups, measured using mortality data from the Korean National Health Insurance Corporation and the National Health Statistical Office. Direct screening costs, indirect screening costs, and productivity costs were considered in different combinations in the model. When all three of these costs were considered together, the incremental cost to save one life year of a breast cancer patient was 42,305,000 Korean Won (KW) (1 USD=1,088 KW) for the screened group compared to the non-screened group. In sensitivity analyses, reducing the false-positive rate of the screening program by half was the most cost-effective (incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, ICER=30,110,852 KW/LYS) strategy. When the upper age limit for screening was set at 70 years, it became more cost-effective (ICER=39,641,823 KW/LYS) than when no upper age limit was set. The NCSP for breast cancer in Korea seems to be accepted as cost-effective as ICER estimates were around the Gross Domestic Product. However, cost-effectiveness could be further improved by increasing the sensitivity of breast cancer screening and by setting appropriate age limits.