• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.103-116
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to examine the economic status of retired elderly households. This study especially looked for the differences in the economic status among retired elderly households and the level of subjective financial strain. The data were drawn from the data of 2000 Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) conducted by the Korea Labor Institute. The major findings are as follows: 1) The levels of income in the retired households were found to be lower than those of the employed elderly households, and the transfer income took the biggest portion out of 5 income types reflecting high economic dependency. 2) The levels of expenditure were found to be similar to the minimum living cost, and the food cost at home was 41.9% of the expenditure. 3) About 40% and 27.3% of households reported that they felt financial strain due to food expenditures at home and health care respectively. 4) Ninety percent of all assets were found to be real estate, reflecting the lack of asset liquidity. Further, retired elderly households were classified as 'not at all strained financially', 'moderate', 'seriously strained', and 'extremely strained' groups according to their subjective assessment. The last two groups showed the lower level of income and expenditures than the first two groups. In particular, 26.5% of retired elderly households belonged to 'extremely strained' group and showed very serious economic problems.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.67 no.1
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• pp.84-93
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• 2024

Objective : We aimed to examine trends in critically ill neurology-neurosurgery (NNS) patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) in South Korea and identify risk factors for in-hospital mortality after ICU admission in NNS patients. Methods : This nationwide population-based retrospective cohort study enrolled adult NNS adult patients admitted to the ICU from 2010 to 2019 extracted from the National Health Insurance Service in South Korea. The critically ill NNS patients were defined as those whose main admission departments were neurology or neurosurgery at ICU admission. The number of ICU admission, age, and total cost for hospitalization from 2010 to 2019 in critically ill NNS patients were examined as trend information. Moreover, multivariable logistic regression modeling was used to identify risk factors for in-hospital mortality among critically ill NNS patients. Results : We included 845474 ICU admission cases for 679376 critically ill NNS patients in South Korea between January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2019. The total number of ICU admissions among NNS patients was 79522 in 2010, which increased to 91502 in 2019. The mean age rose from 62.8 years (standard deviation [SD], 15.6) in 2010 to 66.6 years (SD, 15.2) in 2019, and the average total cost for hospitalization per each patient consistently increased from 6206.1 USD (SD, 5218.5) in 2010 to 10745.4 USD (SD, 10917.4) in 2019. In-hospital mortality occurred in 75455 patients (8.9%). Risk factors strongly associated with increased in-hospital mortality were the usage of mechanical ventilator (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 19.83; 95% confidence interval [CI], 19.42-20.26; p<0.001), extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (aOR, 3.49; 95% CI, 2.42-5.02; p<0.001), and continuous renal replacement therapy (aOR, 6.47; 95% CI, 6.02-6.96; p<0.001). In addition, direct admission to ICU from the emergency room (aOR, 1.38; 95% CI, 1.36-1.41; p<0.001) and brain cancer as the main diagnosis (aOR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.22-1.39; p<0.001) are also potential risk factors for increased in-hospital mortality. Conclusion : In South Korea, the number of ICU admissions increased among critically ill NNS patients from 2010 to 2019. The average age and total costs for hospitalization also increased. Some potential risk factors are found to increase in-hospital mortality among critically ill NNS patients.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.372-386
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• 2002

The purposes of this study were to find factor which influence on the selection criteria of food supplier. Questionnaire were distributed to 52 general hospitals with more than 400 beds located in Seoul and Kyongin province, and responded questionnaires were collected from 44 dietetic departments (84.6%) and 18 purchasing departments (34.6%). The main results of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) supplier selection criteria include quality, service, cost and supplier competency. (2) With having been met with tight competition and market opening, hospitals plan a strategy to improve quality, service and they tend to have more interest in various supplier selection criteria. (3) Purchasing departments estimate more highly the rate of reflection in considering supplier selection criteria than the rate of importance about cost criteria, which reveals that purchasing departments sensitively respond to cost cutdown. (4) When selecting suppliers, a significant(p<.01) influence of stability of supplier industry environment on the selecting criteria such as the importances of quality, service, and supplier quality are recognized only after recognizing the stability of food delivery industry. Food supplier industry secures stability more quickly through major companies' participation in food distribution industry and this will reveal the importance of supplier selection criteria. (5) Suppliers which are selected by the quality criteria, service criteria, supplier quality criteria make efforts to communicate with foodservice departments, to give more proper information about substitute food, new product, and to make commitments, while suppliers which are decided by cost criteria do not establish supportive relationships with foodservice departments.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.22-40
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• 2015

Cellulose fibers is one of the most abundant in nature. It has many distinctive features: abundant in nature, biodegradable, non-toxic, eco-friendly, sustainable, easy to fabricate, hydrophilic, and cost-effective. Cellulose fibers, known as pulp, is produced from cellulose-containing materials by the pulping process. As the raw material, wood has been most commonly used while recycled pulp has been also used to some degree. Thus, pulp usually refers to wood pulp. Generally, the pulp and paper industry is regarded as the commodity market where the cost should be much more important than the quality. It also belongs to a mature market where the growth is slow, or even in decline. Accordingly, technological development has been rather stagnant for the industry. Recently, however, the pulp and paper industry has faced very serious challenges. First, due to digital technology, there has been a steady decline in the need for pulp and paper products. The digital industry has continuously replaced printed products such as books, newspapers, and magazines. Second, there has been a trend initiated by developed countries to limit the use of wood as the raw material for the sake of environmental protection. This forces the industry to find a more efficient use of wood pulp as well as finding alternative, non-wood sources. Third, as an individual becomes wealthier and more conscious of health-care, the quality of a product becomes more important than the cost. Thus, a paradigm shift is needed from the cost-conscientious to the quality conscientious. The objective of this article is to review the technologies aimed at engineering cellulose fibers for producing high-value added paper products.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.5855-5877
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• 2017

In view of personal health and disease management based on cost effective healthcare services, there is a growing need for real-time monitoring services. The electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is one of the most important of health information and real-time monitoring of the ECG can provide an efficient way to cope with emergency situations, as well as assist in everyday health care. In this system, it is essential to continuously collect and transmit large amount of ECG data within a given time and provide maximum user convenience at the same time. When considering limited wireless capacity and unstable channel conditions, appropriate signal processing and transmission techniques such as compression are required. However, ISO/IEEE 11073 standards for interoperability between personal health devices cannot properly support compressed data transmission. Therefore, in the present study, the problems for handling compressed data are specified and new extended agent and manager are proposed to address the problems while maintaining compatibility with existing devices. Extended devices have two PM-stores enabling compression and a novel transmission scheme. A variety of compression techniques can be applied; in this paper, discrete cosine transformation (DCT) is used. And the priority of information after DCT compression enables new transmission techniques for performance improvement. The performance of the compressed signal and the original uncompressed signal transmitted over the noisy channel are compared in terms of percent root mean square difference (PRD) using our simulation results. Our transmission scheme shows a better performance and complies with 11073 standards.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1565-1570
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• 2015

Background: In Aotearoa/New Zealand cervical screening programmes have reduced cervical cancer; however, half of cervical cancer cases among Pacific women are found among clients who had not attended cervical screening. Hence, we set out to determine health provider perspectives on barriers that prevent their services reaching Pacific women within Aotearoa/New Zealand. Materials and Methods: Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with health care providers, Pap smear takers and community workers in the Wellington region. Participants were asked their views on factors that enabled and/or constrained the participation of Pacific women in their cervical screening services. Results: Six interrelated themes influencing participation in cervical screening among Pacific women in the Wellington region were apparent: the funding and practice of service delivery; family always coming first; the cost of screening services; type of employment; the appropriateness of information; and attitudes to self and screening. Conclusions: Determining specific ethnic group actual health needs and meeting them contributes to overall improvement in New Zealand's health status. The results identified the need for improvements to the delivery of screening services including adapting cervical screening services to the requirements of Pacific women through more outreach services at alternate clinic hours; culturally appropriate practitioners; the ability to take up opportunities for health checks and foster long-term relationships; as well as appropriate monitoring and evaluation of approaches. Funding and reporting relationships also need to be compatible with the goal of improving outcomes for Pacific women. Further research into client voices for their particular needs to compliment the service provider perspective as well as minority groups is called for.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.14
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• pp.5571-5575
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• 2014

Background: The ability to predict the survival time of breast cancer patients is important because of the potential high morbidity and mortality associated with the disease. To develop a predictive inference for determining the survival of breast cancer patients, we applied a novel Bayesian method. In this paper, we propose the development of a databased statistical probability model and application of the Bayesian method to predict future survival times for White Hispanic female breast cancer patients, diagnosed in the US during 1973-2009. Materials and Methods: A stratified random sample of White Hispanic female patient survival data was selected from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database to derive statistical probability models. Four were considered to identify the best-fit model. We used three standard model-building criteria, which included Akaike Information Criteria (AIC), Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC), and Deviance Information Criteria (DIC) to measure the goodness of fit. Furthermore, the Bayesian method was used to derive future survival inferences for survival times. Results: The highest number of White Hispanic female breast cancer patients in this sample was from New Mexico and the lowest from Hawaii. The mean (SD) age at diagnosis (years) was 58.2 (14.2). The mean (SD) of survival time (months) for White Hispanic females was 72.7 (32.2). We found that the exponentiated Weibull model best fit the survival times compared to other widely known statistical probability models. The predictive inference for future survival times is presented using the Bayesian method. Conclusions: The findings are significant for treatment planning and health-care cost allocation. They should also contribute to further research on breast cancer survival issues.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.87-109
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• 2013

This study analyzed technical efficiencies of health service industry of OECD countries with DEA and SFA approaches using 10 year data from OECD Health Database. The results can be summarized as follows: First, Korea was found the best practice among 15 OECD countries based on CRS nondirectional SBM models. Second, it was found that some inefficiencies were due to environmental factors. Third, we found that environmental factors were important factors in efficiencies of health service industry by observing that there were large efficiency changes after adjusting slacks due to environmental factors. From the above, Korea led the OECD countries in health service industry and was the most competent. But this study has some limitation since the quality and cost of health care was not taken into account.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.495-502
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• 2021

This study aims to provide basic data for elderly health insurance policy and medical radiation safety management by analyzing the general radiography usage and exposure dose of the elderly in Korea. The effective dose for each general radiography was calculated using the ALARA-GR program for 260 general radiography codes selected from 'National Health Insurance Care Benefit Cost'. The usage of general radiography was analyzed in the 2016 elderly patient data of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, and the effective dose for each general radiography was applied. The general radiography usage and exposure dose per person aged 65 years and over was 6.47 cases and 0.56 mSv. Females showed higher value than males as 7.15 cases and 0.66 mSv(p<.001). By age, those between 75 and 79 showed the highest number as 6.97 cases and 0.62 mSv(p<.001). Those who were supported by Medical Aid showed higher value than those who were insured by National Health Insurance as 8.82 cases and 0.76 mSv(p<.001). In addition, the ratio by radiography was in the order of Chest 20.85%, Knee Joint 15.58%, and L-spine 14.67%, and the exposure dose was L-spine 29.40%, Chest 15.82%, Abdomen 7.97%, and Entire Spine 7.20%. General radiography, which is widely used due to the high frequency of diseases in the elderly population should be taken into consideration when establishing health insurance policies. In addition, it is necessary to check whether the general radiography with high exposure dose is performed as a routine examination without considering medical necessity.

• Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 2004

Background : Intravenous(IV) access is becoming an increasingly important part of health care today. The current drive for clinical effectiveness and cost-effective health care serves to increase the need for reliable vascular access. Venous access devices were developed to overcome problems associated with limited peripheral access and frequent venipuncture in patients with long-term therapy. Although the peripherally inserted central catheter(PICC) have become popular during recent years in USA, its procedure is rare in Korea. Purpose : The goal of this study was to analyze the PICC inserted patient data by IV CNS intervention. Method : A Total of 62 PICCs were inserted into 51 patients by the IV CNS during a 10-month period form November, 14, 2002, to October 2, 2002. Data was obtained retrospectively through chart review. Result : The patient population included 34(54.8%) men and 28(45.2%) women, with a mean age 50.6 years. The main indication for PICC placement was to access vein in poor peripheral venous status(40.3%). The mean served interval for PICC insertions was 16.7 days(range, $2{\sim}61$ days). The reasons for removal were completed therapy in 18 cases(29.0%), patient death in 13 cases(21.0%), and mechanical or functional PICC problem in 10cases(16.1%). The three PICCs removed for presumed infection, and one had only positive tip cultures(0.2%). Conclusion : PICCs are rapidly growing popularity and required an extended course of IV therapy.