• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.71-82
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• 2016

Objectives : This study purposed to analyze the productivity trends of regional health care resource uses in South Korea. Methods : Data was provided from the regional health care statistics by the National Health Insurance Service(NHIS) and collected from 2011 to 2014 at the 226 administrative regions such as Si(city in Korean), Gun(county in Korean), Gu(district in Korean). Productivity trend was analyzed with Malmquist Productivity Index(MPI). Input variables were the number of medical personnels, facilities, and major medical equipments. Output variables were the number of inpatient and outpatients in model A, and the amount of inpatient and outpatient reimbursements in model B. Results : In model A, the productivity of 62 regions were increased but it was decreased in 164 regions. In model B, the productivity of 123 regions were increased but it was decreased in 123 regions. Conclusions : If these trends were continued, there will be problems with the efficiency of national regional healthcare resource utilization. Health policy makers will require to focus in solving this phenomenon.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.491-500
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to examine the health status of marriage immigrants and naturalized people, their health service utilization and barriers to that in an effort to seek ways of getting rid of their difficulties in health service utilization. The raw data of a 2012 Survey on the State of Multicultural Families were used, and a survey was conducted on 15,001 marriage immigrants and naturalized people from July 10 to July 31, 2012. As a result, the marriage immigrants and the naturalized people got a mean of 3.96 in subjective health status, which showed that they were in good health. The main medical institutions that they used in times of sickness were hospitals and clinics(82.7%). 39.1 percent of the respondents answered they had difficulties in using health service, and the most dominant difficulty they faced at that time was communication problems(52.0%), followed by high expense(28.9%). The respondents who answered they found it most difficult to use health service due to communication lagged behind the others in terms of Korean proficiency, and the respondents who cited expense as the biggest difficulty fell behind the others in terms of living standard. To make health service more accessible to marriage immigrants and naturalized people, the government should take measures to ensure their right of health. Specifically, how to relieve their financial burden should carefully be devised, and medical institutions should provide interpretation service to guarantee their easier health service utilization.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2002

The proportion and role of public sector in health care industry is very small in Korea. Asymmetric distribution of health care resources is one of the major health care concerns. This issue is so important that it raises a question of accessibility, availability, continuity of care and equity of rural area people's health care utilization. To solve these problems and to satisfy the basic demand of oriental medical service in rural areas, the oriental public health doctors were placed in rural health centers since 1998. The main objectives of this study are twofold: to measure the cognition and attitude of health center directors on the strategies for utilizing oriental public health doctors and to provide basic data for improving the health manpower management program. Data have been collected by way of the self-administrative questionnaires. Developing the questionnaire, the literature review on the previous studies and delphi method were carried out. The response rate was 38.7%. The results of this study are summarized as follows; 1. community people respond positively on the oriental medical service activity in health center. 2. In regard to workloads of oriental public health doctor, 'appropriate' was 81.1% and 'burdensome' was 18.2%, respectively. 3. The 94.0% of respondents thought that the oriental medical service will be continued. 4. To activate oriental medical service in health center, the sufficient budget and provision of aid workers is a necessity. 5. The 75.5% of health center directors respond positively on the allocation of oriental public health doctor to health sub-centers. 6. Health center directors agreed that oriental public health doctor should perform the clinical service as well as prevention and health promotion activity. These results recommend that oriental medical service in health center should be continued gradually, and oriental public health doctors working at health center perform their work efficiently. Undoubtedly, their activity should be more focused on health promotion and disease prevention than daily patient care. For achieving this objective, more support of governmental policy is essential for utilizing oriental public health doctor and better health of the rural area community people.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.81-90
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• 2012

For digital TV, the recommendation of u-health personalized service of semantic environment should be done after evaluating individual physical condition, illness and health condition. The existing recommendation method of u-health personalized service of semantic environment had low user satisfaction because its recommendation was dependent on ontology for analyzing significance. We propose the personalized service recommendation method based on Naive Bayesian Classifier for u-health service of semantic environment in digital TV. In accordance with the proposed method, the condition data is inferred by using ontology, and the transaction is saved. By applying naive bayesian classifier that uses preference information, the service is provided after inferring based on user preference information and transaction formed from ontology. The service inferred based on naive bayesian classifier shows higher precision and recall ratio of the contents recommendation rather than the existing method.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.367-379
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• 2014

Background: Over the last decade, medical tourism industry has grown in Korea. Especially the number of Mongolian medical tourists has increased rapidly. Therefore, the Mongolia is one of the targets for Korea medical tourism. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of destination image and expected attributes of medical services on Mongolian's intention to use Korean medical tourism service. Methods: This study empirically collected survey data from Mongolian lived in Mongolia. The study analyzed the data using a PLS model. Results: Our results are as follows. First, the country image didn't significantly have causal effects on expected medical service quality and perceived risk. Second, tourism image (e.g., entertainment, economic feasibility, and local convenience) has significantly causal effects on expected medical service quality and perceived risk. However, tourist site as tourism image didn't significantly have causal effects on expected medical service quality and perceived risk. Third, medical image made a statistically significant effect on expected medical service quality and perceived risk. Fourth, the expected medical service quality showed a significant effect on intention to use Korean medical tourism service. Fifth, the perceived risk of medical tourism showed a significant effect on the reliability of medical tourism, but didn't show a significant effect on the intention to use Korean medical tourism service. Finally, the reliability has a significant effect on the intention to use Korean medical tourism service. Conclusion: From our empirical results, this study concluded that as a strategy attracting Mongolian patients, it is more effective to strengthen Korean hospital image and tourism image than Korean country image.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.114-127
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• 2003

In the process of devising an efficient meal service system for the elderly, 478 elderly were interviewed at 6 different social centers with the elderly meal service program in Seoul area to monitor degree of satisfaction and/or needs of the beneficiaries regarding the program. The survey was conducted during the month of December 2002 by well-trained interviewers using self-developed questionnaire. Results were analyzed statistically using SAS package program. Most of the beneficiaries were low economic class and 76% of them had doctor diagnosed disease(s). Among the beneficiaries of congregate meal service, mean score of 12 aspects of satisfaction was 3.72 out of 5. For most of the questions, female elderly and healthy elderly responded with higher score than male elderly and unhealthy elderly, respectively (p<0.05, p<0.01). On the other hand, beneficiaries of the home-delivered meal service were little bit less satisfied with the service (3.54 out of 5). Compared to the beneficiaries of congregate meal service, larger portion of beneficiaries of home-delivered meal service wanted more meats (28.5 % vs. 17.1 %) and vegetables (23.2 % vs. 12.3 %) as side dishes. On the other hand, the most preferred type of cooking and/or seasoning was stewing for both cases. Based on these findings, it is suggested that more fresh foods should be used than processed foods in the preparation of meals for the elderly and, more fish-, meat- and vegetable- dishes should be served to come up to the needs of the elderly. Onto this, mainly Korean style meals with some intermittent Western, Japanese or Chinese style meals served at the right temperature would suffice most of the elderly needs.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.311-324
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• 2023

Background: Long-term care insurance for the elderly has been stably established along with the quantitative expansion of long-term care facilities. Indeed, the need for a paradigm about human rights-based service approach is being raised throughout society from a service perspective. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the association between elderly human rights awareness and quality of service by considering human rights education as a moderate variable. Methods: This study conducted surveys with 138 caregivers working in long-term care facilities located in Seoul and Gangwon. General characteristics, awareness of human rights, and the level of service quality were examined using descriptive statistics, frequency analysis, and correlation analysis. And multi-variable linear regression with a hierarchical framework was employed. These analyses were performed using IBM SPSS ver. 25.0. Results: Of the 138 caregivers, 97.1% were female, 87.7% were more than 50 years old, and most of their education level was high-school graduates. Their length of employment ranged from more than 5 years to less than 10 years. The level of awareness regarding elderly human rights of the elderly was below normal (mean=2.21), but the quality of service was high (mean=4.21), and the need for human rights education was also high (mean=4.28). Among the general characteristics, the length of employment was significantly associated with awareness of elderly human rights. Moreover, political rights awareness, included as sub-domains of human rights, was positively associated with quality of service. However, the moderating variable, human rights education, was not significantly associated with the quality of service. Conclusion: In this study, human rights education, as a moderating variable, did not have a statistically significant effect on caregivers' human rights awareness in relation to service quality. This finding is inconsistent with previous research results. These results can be explained by the fact that the frequency of education in long-term care facilities was a significant factor in the practice of protecting the human rights of the elderly. Therefore ongoing encouragement for the frequency of current human rights education and improvements in the educational approach appear to be necessary. In addition, these findings reveal the need for strength of education policies and effective in-depth research about human rights and quality of service to respect the human rights of the elderly.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.164-177
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• 2020

This study aims to compare the experience of selected countries in operating separate payment system for new healthcare technology and to find implications for price setting in Korea. We analyzed the related reports, papers, laws, regulations, and related agencies' online materials from five selected countries including the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and France. Each country has its own additional payment system for new technologies: transitional pass-through payment and new technology ambulatory payment classification for outpatient care and new technology add-on payment for inpatient care (USA), an extra payment for materials with new functions or new treatment (C1, C2; Japan), an additional payment system for new special treatment materials (Taiwan), a short-term extra funding for new diagnosis and treatment (NUB; Germany), and list of additional payments for new medical devices (France). The technology should be proven safe and effective in order to get approval for an additional payment. The price is determined by considering the actual cost of providing the technology and the cost of existing similar technologies listed in the benefits package. The revision cycle of the additional payment is 1 to 4 years. The cost or usage is monitored during that period and then integrated into the existing fee schedule or removed from the list. We conclude that it is important to set the explicit criteria to select services eligible for additional payment, to collect and analyze data to assess eligibility and to set the payment, to monitor the usage or cost, and to make follow-up measures in price setting for new health technologies in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.155-167
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• 2002

This study was carried out to grasp visiting nurses' perception of the service referral between health and welfare with a view to providing the basic data for the visiting nursing activities. A questionnaire survey was conducted on public health nurses in 25 health centers in Seoul from Feb. 12, 2001 to Mar. 15, 2001. A total of 151 questionnaires were collected and they were analysed by use of SPSS/WIN 7.5. The results of the survey are as follows. 1. In general, visiting nurses were burdened with heavy workloads. On average, a visiting nurse covered 5 ‘dong's(the smallest administrative unit), 564 households, and 1223 persons. They spent almost a quarter of their working hours moving from home to home and recording the charts after home visiting. They took 30-60 minutes to provide their services when visiting homes. As for the frequency of home visiting, they were following the instructions recommended by the government. However, their services were still wasteful, not skill-oriented, in that they spent more time assessing ‘subjects’ rather than providing their ‘services’ for them. 2. As for the degree of service performance, visiting nurses scored average 2.94 and 2.28 on the four-point scale in the area of health and welfare respectively. The Pearson coefficient between the two variables was high(.56). According as the health services increased, the welfare services increased as well, which showed that the service referral between the two areas should be essential. 3. ‘The necessity of cooperation with social welfare staff’ scored average 4.49, and ‘the degree of cooperation with social welfare staff’ scored average 3.16 on the five-point scale; There was a statistically significant difference (average 1.33) between the two variables. Such a big difference between perception and practice results from the lack of political support that connects the two service areas comprehensively. Therefore it is recommendable to establish a so-called ‘Visiting Nursing Center’ in the ‘dong’ office in order to provide integrated services of health and welfare at once in cooperation with social welfare staff. That's the way to meet the public needs directly and it's more efficient as well in terms of cost-saving.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2022

Purpose: This secondary data analysis study evaluated the effects of ICT enhanced home-visit nursing in long-term care insurance on health-related quality of life among community-dwelling older adults. Methods: This study included data of 131 older adults who had experienced a pilot service for ICT enhanced home-visit nursing. ICT enhanced home-visit nursing refers to a method of sharing health records and teleconference between a visiting nurse and a doctor during the home-visit nursing services to community-dwelling older adults. Health-related quality of life and influencing factors were analyzed by t-tests, logistic regression analysis using the Stata 17/SE program. Results: After a pilot service for ICT enhanced home-visit nursing, their health-related quality of life increased. The teleconferencing method had a significant effect on the increase in health-related quality of life. Conclusion: The findings indicate a pilot service for ICT enhanced home-visit nursing can be applied to the domestic community-based healthcare service model in terms of health management. In the future, the advanced service model of a pilot service for ICT enhanced home-visit nursing in which subjects conduct detailed for each health problem, and a well-designed evaluation system should be developed.