• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.83 no.3
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• pp.218-227
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• 2020

Background: The national Public-Private Mix (PPM) tuberculosis (TB) control project provides for the comprehensive management of TB patients at private hospitals in South Korea. Surveillance and monitoring of TB under the PPM project are essential toward achieving TB elimination goals. Methods: TB is a nationally notifiable disease in South Korea and is monitored using the surveillance system. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quarterly generates monitoring indicators for TB management, used to evaluate activities of the PPM hospitals by the central steering committee of the national PPM TB control project. Based on the notification date, TB patients at PPM hospitals were enrolled in each quarter, forming a cohort, and followed up for at least 12 months to identify treatment outcomes. This report analyzed the dataset of cohorts the first quarter of 2016 through the fourth quarter of 2017. Results: The coverage of sputum, smear, and culture tests among the pulmonary TB cases were 92.8% and 91.5%, respectively. The percentage of positive sputum smear and culture test results were 30.7% and 61.5%, respectively. The coverage of drug susceptibility tests among the culture-confirmed cases was 92.8%. The treatment success rate among the smear-positive drug-susceptible cases was 83.2%. The coverage of latent TB infection treatment among the childhood TB contacts was significantly higher than that among the adult contacts (85.6% vs. 56.0%, p=0.001). Conclusion: This is the first official report to analyze monitoring indicators, describing the current status of the national PPM TB control project. To sustain its effect, strengthening the monitoring and evaluation systems is essential.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.132-143
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• 2023

Objectives: We aimed to describe the reporting patterns of 6 notifiable surveillance diseases in the Republic of Korea, including water- and foodborne infections, from 2012 to 2021. Methods: For the 12,296 cases that met the reporting criteria, we calculated the number of reported cases, including the number of cases confirmed by lab tests or suspected by a physician, the number of cases with delayed reporting and their average days of delay, and the median days required to report the confirmatory test results. Results: The overall number of reported cases consistently increased over the ten years, with a significant rise in the reported cases of typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, and EHEC. Ninety-five percent of all reported cases were timely reported within one day of diagnosis. Vibrio vulnificus had the highest rate of delayed reporting (6.8% delayed over 1 day, 3.0% delayed over 3 days), while cholera had the lowest rate (1.9% delayed over 1 day, 0.1% delayed over 3 days). The average days of delayed reporting was 6.1 days: the highest for paratyphoid fever (10.8 days) and the lowest for cholera (2.7 days). For typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever, there has been an increase in the proportion of cases with negative test results. For vibrio vulnificus, there has been an increase in the proportion of cases with confirmed positive test results. As for EHEC, there has been a recent increase in cases with no confirmatory tests. Conclusions: Reported cases of water- and foodborne infectious diseases increased, indicating improved surveillance system completeness. However, for paratyphoid fever, improvements are needed in terms of timely notification by healthcare facilities and timely reporting of confirmatory test results.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.75 no.6
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• pp.238-243
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• 2013

Background: The aim of our study was to evaluate the "diagnosis changed" rate in patients notified as tuberculosis (TB) on the Korean TB surveillance system (KTBS). Methods: A total of 1,273 patients notified as TB cases on the KTBS in one private tertiary hospital in 2011 were enrolled in the present study. Patients were classified into three groups: "diagnosis maintained", "diagnosis changed" (initially notified as TB, but ultimately diagnosed as non-TB), and "administrative error" (notified as TB due to administrative errors). Results: Excluding 17 patients in the "administrative error" group, the "diagnosis maintained" and "diagnosis changed" groups included 1,097 (87.3%) and 159 patients (12.7%), respectively. Common causes of "diagnosis changed" were nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) disease (51.7%, 61/118), and pneumonia (17.8%) in cases notified as pulmonary TB, and meningitis (19.5%, 8/41) and Crohn's disease (12.2%) in cases notified as extrapulmonary TB. Being older than 35 years of age (odds ratio [OR], 2.18) and a positive acid-fast bacilli stain (OR, 1.58) were positive predictors and a TB-related radiological finding (OR, 0.42) was a negative predictor for a "diagnosis changed" result via multivariate logistic regression analysis in pulmonary TB cases. Conclusion: Because of a high "diagnosis changed" rate in TB notifications to the KTBS, the TB incidence rate measured by the KTBS may be overestimated. Considering the worldwide trend toward increased NTM disease, the "diagnosis changed" rate may increase over time. Thus, when reporting the annual TB notification rate in Korea, the exclusion of "diagnosis changed" cases is desirable.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.37-49
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• 2017

In order to maximize the efficiency and the quality of care in a hospital, hospitals in general operate by appointments. Patient no-shows or missed appointments waste the time of staffs who prepare for appointments, deprive patients of needed care, and increase burden on clinic capacity. The purpose of this study is to examine the importance and significance of factors that affect patient no-shows. The actual data of 50,000 outpatient appointments is compiled and analyzed from a VAMC in the United States with aims to identify the factors that contribute to outpatient no-shows and to draw meaningful implications. Random forest along with logistic regression analysis identify the factors affecting no-shows; appointment leadtime, show-up rate, travel distance, no-show rate in previous period, patient age, severity, complexity of disease, chronic pain, depression, drug dependence. The appointment leadtime, show-up rate, travel distance and previous no-show rate can be improved by enhancing SMS pre-notification and by improving afterwards telephone counseling. For other factors, it needs to study on the service differentiation with the characteristics of each patient group.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.50-59
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• 2014

In mobile healthcare service, the accurate detection and the notification of the emergency situation are important to chronic patients' life. In the existing healthcare service, the medical staff or medical service provider always judges patients' health status by monitoring from the measured from bio-data. However, it is difficult to monitor many patients in real-time simultaneously, because the medical staff should monitor the health status continuously. Furthermore, an emergency condition diagnosis based solely on the statistical level of the bio-data may be difficult, since the emergency judgment of the bio-data might differ depending on the health characteristics of each person such as age, history of disease, gender, etc. In order to solve this problem, this article presents an mobile healthcare system for emergency bio-data management using a personalized emergency policy. The salient feature of the proposed mobile healthcare system is that the characteristics of the health status of an unique patient is defined to the policy, which is used to judge the emergency condition of the bio-data measured from the patient. The prototype of proposed mobile healthcare system has been built to demonstrate the design concept.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.629-630
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• 2017

Recently, the number of patients with habitual vertebrae is increasing due to inappropriate postures and habits while sitting on a chair for a long time, because modern people have a great deal of work and studying due to a lot of work and study. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent such a disease through real-time monitoring and to present a guide for the user to recognize the importance of correct posture. In this study, we implemented a posture discrimination system which can help users to calibrate posture by judging the user's sitting position and feedback by using a pressure sensor based weight distribution system. We analyzed the distribution pattern of body weight to determine one normal posture and six abnormal postures. If the abnormal posture is maintained constantly, the implementation of the application that induces the right posture by ringing the notification is described.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.49-56
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• 2013

Purpose: IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is one of the major causes of end-stage renal disease. Mass school urine screening (SUS) has been performed to enable early detection of chronic renal diseases, including IgAN. We wanted to evaluate the patients with IgAN, including those diagnosed through SUS. Methods: Between 1998 and 2010, 64 children were diagnosed with IgAN based on renal biopsy results obtained at the Pediatric Nephrology Department, ${\bigcirc\bigcirc}$ University Hospital. We divided these patients into the SUS group (37 cases), diagnosed through SUS, and the symptomatic (Sx) group (27 cases), diagnosed clinically. The medical records of both groups were analyzed retrospectively. Results: The mean age of the SUS and Sx groups was $10.8{\pm}2.7$ and $9.5{\pm}3.4$ years (P >0.05), respectively. Both groups had a higher proportion of male patients. The time from the notification of an abnormal urinary finding to a hospital visit or renal biopsy was shorter in the Sx group than in the SUS group. Regarding clinical manifestations, there were fewer cases with gross hematuria (P <0.001) and edema (P =0.008) in the SUS group, but there were no differences in terms of the therapeutic regimen and treatment duration. Regarding laboratory parameters, the Sx group had a higher white blood cell count (P =0.007) and lower hemoglobin (P =0.007) and albumin (P =0.000) levels. There were no differences in the renal biopsy findings in both groups, based on the history of gross hematuria or the severity of proteinuria. However, in all 64 patients with IgAN, the light microscopy findings (Hass classification) were related to a history of gross hematuria or the severity of proteinuria. Conclusion: There were no significant clinical and histological differences between the groups, as both had early stage IgAN. Although SUS facilitates the early detection of IgAN, long-term, large-scale prospective controlled studies are needed to assess the benefits of early diagnosis and treatment in chronic renal disease progression.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.331-340
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• 2000

Primary school is regarded as an important period when many health-related behaviors and life-styles begin to be formed. Acquiring them through school heath education has a strong influence on the health promotion of not only the family but also the community. The objectives of this study were to evaluate current oral health care of elementary schools in Chungnam province and to provide information for further development in elementary school oral health. We performed a questionnaire survey to 280 health teachers and among them, 155 teachers answered. The result of this study were as follows: 1. Sixty five percent of the health teachers had little interest in oral health. Major information sources for teaching oral health were books in 58.1% of the 155 teachers and 83.2% of teachers spent 30 minutes to 1hour per day in oral health care practice for the students. 2. Contents of the oral health education were composed of regular and special curriculums, and an average of education time during a semester was 2.6 hours in 3rd grade, and 1.3 hours in first and second grade. 60.6% of the teachers made the children practice the proper method of tooth brushing during the education time. 3. Major problems in oral health education were insufficient time, lack of equipment and difficulty in teaching method. The educational media were tooth models among 91.0% and OHP among 85.2% of the teachers. The tooth model was usually used in first to fourth grades and OHP in fifth to sixth grades. But 63.9% health teachers need to develop stronger educational methods using multimedia. 4. Meanwhile the most important strategy of oral health in urban schools was health education, that of rural schools was fluoride mouth-rinsing programme. Fluoride mouth-rinsing programmes were performed by 60.0% of the elementary school. Periodic dental examination was performed in all elementary schools. 98.2% of the schools sent the results home through school notification letters, but post-examination management was performed in only 67.1% of them 64.5% of the health teachers do follow-ups on the oral disease of the children after the examination. Only 0.7% of the schools have oral health education plans for the students' parents. Considering these major strategies for elementary school oral health care were health education, practicing proper methods of tooth brushing, periodic dental examinations, and fluoride mouth-rinsing programmes. But health teachers need more time for oral health education, practicing and management, and developing education materials. With regard to the high demand for oral health education and poor follow-up after periodic examination, the oral health education in elementary school should be considered as a formal educational course for more proper management of oral health, including application of major strategies to the children in earlier grades and efforts for increasing recognition and participation of the parents.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.59-69
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• 2011

Recently, as people's interest in health care has been rising, the health care service awareness and utilization has been increasing. However, the existing healthcare services have problems such as inconvenience of mobility, the low reliability of input for information and low accuracy of information provided as well. in this study, we developed the m-Health application by utilizing smart phone with improvement of these problems. This application provided the total of 5 services such as notification for risk of cardiovascular disease, personalized dietary recommendations targeted to 20s and 30s who do not properly manage their health care by bad habits. In addition, the benefits and problems of these services were found out through the analysis for the general importance and satisfaction of these services by Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) technique. In result of IPA analysis, The six items such as 'input accuracy and reliability of information', 'content reliability', 'proper health service recommendations', etc. among 12 of the items needed to receive the effective services on m-Health were belonged to importance and satisfaction area with high level. And, in the 'information security', the importance is high but the satisfaction was low. In conclusion, the further study for strengthening security of information, service update provided with PHR to consistently keep the advantage of these services will be conducted.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.119-142
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• 2013

It is not easy to regulate the amount of radiation used for the medical purpose as there usually is more good than harm to the patient's health and life caused by the medical exposure to the radiation. However, the rapid increase of the use of diagnostic radiation involves a high possibility of increasing the radiation hazard exposure. Therefore, it is imperative to implement effective regulations in order to secure the safety of diagnostic radiation. The one and only rule we currently have for the diagnostic radiation is "Medicine Act" with only one clause dedicated to regulate the safety management that does not include any rules for the medical radiation. A set of inclusive rules for the whole medical radiation inclusive of diagnostic radiation and therapeutic radiation need to be based on the "Medicine Act" rather than "Nuclear Safety Act" in order to protect the medical professionals, patients and the guardians of patients from the hazards of diagnostic and/or therapeutic radiation that was not used the purpose of medical treatment. If there is an administrative measure to be imposed to secure the safety of diagnostic radiation, it is considered as exertion of governmental authority of administrative agency. There must be clear and realistic legal guidelines for in-fringe on people's interests. The administrative measures for the safety management of the diagnostic radiation must be clearly and specifically based on the law and the detailed standards for the administrative measures must be dele-gated by the presidential decree or departmental ordinance. Accordingly, the restrictions imposed by the administrative measures to the "Safety Inspection Institute of Radiation along with Radiation Exposure Measuring Institutes" should have clear legal basis as well and the detailed standards for the administrative measures should be regulated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare decree instead of the notification by the Director of Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While securing the safety of radiation on one side, careful review and up-grade on our legal system for the safety management of the diagnostic radiation is required on the other side to guarantee the legality, interest balance and reliability of the administrative measures.