• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.1-23
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• 1999

The purpose of this paper is to survey the current status of service utilization in oriental medicine, to identify the determinants of consumers' decision in the service utilization, and then suggest policy implications for promoting the consumers' utilization. A multiple regression model was adopted to analyze the factors that influence consumer's decision in purchasing the oriental medical services. Data used in this research relied on National Survey Data conducted by Korea Institute of Health and Social Affairs, and sampling survey. The results could be summarized as follows.: 1. the number of visits to oriental medical institutions has shown an overall increase during the last decade since the inception of health insurance for oriental medical services. It still, however, revealed a relatively iow figure to western medical services. 2. the main factors, after controlling demographic variables, that determine consumers' selection between oriental medical services and western medical services are considered to be price, belief in effectiveness of services, waiting time for service. Implications for policy recommendation include 1. to reduce a barrier to service utilization by discounting dramatically the price of herb medicine, which is believed to be crucial in expanding market share, 2. to encourage consumer's belief in clinical effectiveness through a specialization in competitive services compared with wertern medicine, 3. to keep the affirmative image among consumers alive through an active participation of oriental medical doctors in community activities, 4 to change the health care system in favor of oriental medicine in the long run.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.60-66
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• 2023

Objectives: Discussions regarding "medical blind spots" in Korea's "aging society" are continuously rising. In addition, the demand for medical attention and care for the elderly and vulnerable populations continues to increase. Given this, the government is promoting the "home healthcare service" project. This study aims to lay the foundation for promoting this project by investigating the perception of clinical Korean Medicine (KM) doctors in the "community health care" project. Methods: With the cooperation of the Association of Korean Medicine, we sent a questionnaire to all KM doctors through e-mail. The survey included personal information, awareness, appropriate disease and intervention, proper visit location, and pros and cons. Results: A total of 602 responses were collected and analyzed. Approximately 20% of the doctors answered that they were well aware of the service, while 55% responded that they did not know about it. For a visit, a KM doctor selected the appropriate diseases in the order of stroke, dementia and Parkinson's disease, osteoarthritis, and chronic diseases. Among treatments, acupuncture, moxibustion, and herbal medicine exhibited similar results. The most common opinion was that KM doctors should schedule their visits once a week for 6-12 months, which was the most prolonged period among the given options. More than 80% (84.1%) of the doctors replied that care projects were highly essential, and about 63.8% expressed their willingness to participate in these projects. Conclusion: To provide appropriate home health care, we must raise awareness among Korean medicine doctors. In addition, the healthcare budget must be increased to provide the required support.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.18-48
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• 2004

Health policies in many countries have come under critical scrutiny in recent years. This is because of increasing national health expenditures. Also many persons in health sector have been the perception that resources allocated to health services are not always deployed in an optimal fashion. And they believe that the scope of resources in health services is limited, there is need to search for ways of using existing resources more efficiently. A further concern has been the desire to ensure access to healthcare of various groups on an equitable basis. In some European countries this has been linked to a wish to enhance patient choice and to make service providers more responsive to consumers, while Korea integrated health insurance funds into single fund in 2000. Many European countries are under considerable pressure to review and restructure their health care systems. There are several reasons of pressure to reform. There are demographic changes, pattern of disease change, advances in medical sciences will also give rise to new demands within the health services, public expectations of health services are rising as those who use services demand higher standards of care. These circumstances require the change of health care delivery system based on hierarchical regionalism, which was basis of health care delivery since 1920s. Korea is also under similarly pressure to restructure our own health care systems. We will have good learning from OECD experiences. In this paper we reviewed and compared among OECD countries' various experiences.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.813-832
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• 2009

As accessibility to health-care service in less populated rural areas is geographically limited and demand for public health-care by the aging is increasing, a new approach for health-care service such as a home care service is becoming more popular. For a home care service, health-care personnels directly visit to location of health-care clients. Such changes in provision of health services require developing innovative and scientific approaches for efficient allocation of health resources and managing services by public health-care organizations. The purpose of this study is to formulate a location model for visiting health-care districting for the rural elderly and to develop an Automated Zoning Procedure (AZP) to solve this model. Mobility, workload balance and contiguity criteria are considered in the model. Three different objective functions are evaluated; 1) minimizing the sum of network distance between the unit areas in a district, 2) maximizing spatial interaction between the unit areas in a district, and 3) minimizing tour distance that visits each unit area exactly once in a district. The AZP for solving the model is developed and applied to a rural area. The application results demonstrate that the AZP can generate different districting systems for each objective functions.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.272-278
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• 2023

Background: Some working conditions may pose a higher physical or psychological demand to pregnant women leading to increased risks of pregnancy complications. Objectives: We assessed the association of woman's employment status and the industrial classification with obstetric complications. Methods: We conducted a national population study using the National Health Information Service database of Republic of Korea. Our analysis encompassed 1,316,310 women who experienced first-order live births in 2010-2019. We collected data on the employment status and the industrial classification of women, as well as their diagnoses of preeclampsia (PE) and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) classified as A1 (well controlled by diet) or A2 (requiring medication). We calculated odds ratios (aORs) of complications per employment, and each industrial classification was adjusted for individual risk factors. Results: Most (64.7%) were in employment during pregnancy. Manufacturing (16.4%) and the health and social (16.2%) work represented the most prevalent industries. The health and social work exhibited a higher risk of PE (aOR = 1.11, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.03-1.21), while the manufacturing industry demonstrated a higher risk of class A2 GDM (1.20, 95% CI: 1.03-1.41) than financial intermediation. When analyzing both classes of GDM, women who worked in public administration and defense/social security showed higher risk of class A1 GDM (1.04, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.07). When comparing high-risk industries with nonemployment, the health and social work showed a comparable risk of PE (1.02, 95% CI: 0.97, 1.07). Conclusion: Employment was associated with overall lower risks of obstetric complications. Health and social service work can counteract the healthy worker effect in relation to PE. This highlights the importance of further elucidating specific occupational risk factors within the high-risk industries.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.69-75
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• 2020

Purposes: This study aims to investigate the number of cataract surgeries and predict future trends using 13-year data. Methodology: Trends investigation and comparison of prediction methods was conducted to determine better prediction model using Major Surgery Statistics from Korean Statistical Information Service in 2006-2018. ARIMA(Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average) was selected and prediction was conducted using R program. Findings: As a results, the number of surgeries will continue to increase. The trends was predicted to increase during January-April, and it declined over time and was the lowest in August. Pratical Implications: Therefore, it is necessary that management will be needed by continuously investigating and predicting the demand and trend for surgery to prepare an alternative to the increase.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.226-235
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• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there were differences in manufacturing industry worker's health issues depending on job stress, fatigue, and health and safety services. Methods: The purpose of the questionnaire survey and its contents were explained to manufacturing industry health personnel, and the questionnaires were collected from 666 workers from 17 manufacturing workplaces. Questionnaires with missing data were excluded from the analysis so a total of 632 questionnaires were included. Results: Overall, 74.1% of the respondents had experienced health issues during the preceding month. The factors affecting worker health were number of workers(OR=1.000034, p=.013), job demand(OR=1.82, p=.009), MFS(OR=1.85, p=.003), provision of safety & health information(OR=1.85, p=.048), wearing protector(OR=2.58, p=.021). Conclusion: It is necessary to strengthen the safety and health education to mitigate hazardous and risk factors. Employers should provide health managers in charge of safety and health education to control workplace risk factors. In case of small businesses, it may be necessary to strengthen safety and health education in existing worker health centers and government support projects.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.58-64
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• 2023

Background: A group health service is a system that delegates workplace health management to an entrusted institution. There have been various studies on group health services to date, but recent changes, such as an increase in foreign workers, are rapidly changing industry characteristics. Methods: Satisfaction was assessed using a 27-question survey distributed among 203 workplaces employing health professionals. The survey items consisted of general characteristics, comprehensive satisfaction, requirements for health professionals' work, and satisfaction with work environment management, ergonomic management, and healthcare management. Multiple regression and frequency analyses were performed. Results: The comprehensive satisfaction was 4.08 points on average, out of 5. The comprehensive satisfaction of health professionals in the industry was positively correlated with each factor. Hazardous materials and chemical management (material safety data sheets, MSDSs) were the most common requirements. Conclusion: A low level of satisfaction with work environment management indicates high demand for healthcare management. The working environment should be improved by identifying characteristics of the workplace, examining harmful substances, inspecting equipment, and enhancing worker methods. The shorter the work experience of health professionals, the more dependent they are on group health services. The variables affecting comprehensive satisfaction were the period of work, healthcare management satisfaction, and work environment management satisfaction. Most of the requirements of health professionals in the workplace were practical improvement case presentations, MSDSs, and legal document management.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.25-33
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• 2006

Purpose: To investigate the health problems and health services in child day care centers. Methods: Data were collected from 115 teachers at 16 child day care centers in Seoul city. A questionnaire was used to collect data, which were analyzed with the SPSS 12.0 program. Results: Most teachers had experienced various child health problems such as colds, hand․foot․mouth diseases, chicken pox, skin injuries, nasal bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea. Furthermore, they even experienced some serious ones including dysentery, measles, asthma and seizures, which demand professional skill. However, there were no registered nurses and most teachers requested that parents take a child home when these health problems happened. Only 31.3% of the child care centers had a teacher with CPR training. Approximately half of the centers kept child health records which included reports on allergic substances, and medical history but only 18.7% of the child care centers offered regular immunizations for the children. Conclusion: Various health problems were found in child day care centers. To maintain the children's health, there is a need to develop and make provisions for health services and programs in child day care centers.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.577-585
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• 2009

Various studies on individual health-care application services have been lively going on due to recent development of information and communication technology and improvement of life quality. Moreover, U-health care area is emerging as a new growth industry as the demand of U-health care service for a quality life grows with the development of medical technology and ubiquitous environment. U-health care system for crew members on ships, who need to spend much time on sea far from their families, is especially needed because they find their job much more stressful not only physically but also mentally than any other people in different jobs do and have less chance to get proper medical services in time. In this paper, we suggested how to get more accurate and objective U-health wellbeing index by complementing SF-36, the general heath care index model in order to managing health of crew. Also we designed the U-health wellbeing index service system which can provide appropriate sports programs or diet contents according to health index.