• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.307-322
• /
• 2015

In most democratic countries, influential professional interest groups often become a part of the iron triangle in the policy making process. One of the typical methods by which professional interest groups participate in policy making process may be by having interest group members in the national assembly, who are sympathetic to the group, implementing policies through legislation. In this study we found that from the Constitutional National Assembly through the 18th National Assembly, 147 members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea have been ex health care professionals. The research analyzed the roles of these members in health care law amendments as requested by the professional organizations. This study analyzed 11 major cases that involved nullification or amendment of legislations in favor of the healthcare profession, against the basic policies of the government. The study showed that in the 11 major cases, policies were amended in the direction intended by the National Assembly members and other organizations with similar interests, which was against the policy stance of the government. However, these cases did not unilaterally imply that the National Assembly has been captured by the interest groups through the legislators with health care professional background; rather, they should be perceived to be influenced by the exhibited loss of governability by the government in respect to healthcare policy decisions, loss of initiative due to lack of controllability, and reversals and inconsistencies of the policies.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.239-250
• /
• 2016

This study is to prepare curriculum in South Korea to train outstanding individual in the fields of Health Care Management for the global age, hospitals' administration managers, professors and students were targeted to carry out the survey and the collected questionnaires were processed with SPSS Ver. 21.0 statistic package, based on this the suitability of the current Health Care Management curriculum and postgraduate curriculum was inspected and improvement plan was deducted, and also through comparative analysis of the Health Care Management curriculum for undergraduate and postgraduate in the United Kingdom and United States, optimum improvement suggestions were made. Based on the research result, the priority to improve and consolidate from undergraduate curriculum was the strengthening of the working-level education, the most needed ability in the future is global negotiation and dispute/conflict adjustment which needs supplementation. Also, after analyzing the undergraduate curriculum of the United States and United Kingdom, it is needed that the development of the capacity to lead organizations for healthcare and subjects for the establishment of health policy should be reflected.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.1-14
• /
• 1990

This papaer discusses the recent tendencies of health approach in the developed countries and suggests the strategy of health approach in order to cope with the changing environmental conditions of Korea in 2000's. In 2000's, Korea will have the environmental conditions and health problems similar to those of the developed countries at present. The American and European developed countries have shown the integrative approach trend by the interdisciplinary cooperation based on the holistic health conception, for example, as in the behavioral medicine, with the active drive of the medical self care movement and the national health preactice movement. The basic solution to the 2000's main health problems such as high morbidity of chronic diseases and high medical expenditure is to decrease the health need through the health promotion, disease prevention and early. ditection and early treatment of disease. The above actions need to induce the public to change their health behavior in the desirable direction through the national health practice movement and the health self care movement. The succeed of the movements depends upon how to use effectively the mass media, health and administrative organizations, schools, industrial and medical insurance organizations with the strong government support of health and preventive policies and programs.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.1-16
• /
• 1993

The objective of this study is to review the role and function of the village health worker in the wake of the recent social changes in Korea. The stud}' also aimed at' elucidating' the characteristics of the village health worker organizations developed through community participation in this country. The study methods employed were: a review of literature and other existing information related to VHW's activities ; the use of Questionnaire and interview with VHW's on their activities in one selected county in 1992. The major findings obtained are as follows: 1. So far the community health care activities have been carried out by medical colleges, foreign aid agencies and religious organizations with a view to improving health care for the population in rural area. 2. The VHWs employed by the local community health services received remuneratiorin cash or in kind. However, presently no remuneration is paid to VHWs employed by the government village health projects. The training for VHWs is organized by County Health Center once a year for 1-2days regardless of pre-employment or refresher. 3. The needs of care for maternal and child health and family planning has been decline due to the decrease of the target population, but on the other hand, the needs of care by VHW for prevention of infectious diseases, health of the aging, management of geriatric diseases, prevention of poisoning of pesticides and environmental sanitation has beer increased. 4. It was felt strongly that the training for VHWs should be strengthened by means of developing a problem-solving oriented educational program in order to improve practical skills of VHWs.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.70-80
• /
• 2000

This study is conducted to evaluate the social concern of the related issues through trend analysis of reports on Oriental medical care in major domestic newspapers including Dong-a Ilbo, Hankook Ilbo, Chosunilbo, and JoongAng Ilbo. Materials of this study were collected from a total of 1,039 reports on Oriental medical care by internet search of each newspaper company's homepage from fan 1, 1993 to Dec 31, 1999. Two researchers analyzed the trend of report contents on Oriental medical care by publication year. The major results were as follows: The most frequent subject in these reports related to Oriental medical care was 'disease', appearing in 45.5% (473) of tile reports, followed by 'oriental health system (31.5%)' and "oriental medical facilities (16.5%)'. Also, topics on the collaborative efforts of Oriental and Western medical care were reported in 7.9% of the cases. According to a survey of the opinions held for the contents in these reports, 51.0% reports held neutral views while 48.2% and only 0.8% reports had favorable and negative views, respectively. In conclusion, the reports covering Oriental medical care in major domestic newspapers have increased in recent times and many held favorable views. Considering the widespread influence of mass-media, the government and health-related organizations must continuously monitor the opinions in daily newspapers, for the opinions are the influencing force of health-rotated behaviors and changes. In this light, these organizations should enforce the health policy on strategies for mutual development of Western and Oriental medicine in Korea.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• no.spc
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2016

In a situation where competition becomes intense, health care organizations constantly strive to provide more services with given personnel and time. While not only the 'quantity' of the services but also the 'quality' becomes increasingly important, various problems that can occur during the 'process' of service provision can be effectively managed by applying the methods of management science. In this study, we introduce the cases where the methods of management science can be applied for the management of health care organizations in Korea and abroad. There are many cases where various scenarios for improving the patients' accessibility to the services and for maximizing the efficient use of limited resources are established, and simulation or basic statistical analysis methods are used to solve the problems more systematically or to develop improvement plans. In this study, several exemplary cases, such as no-show of patients, crowding in the emergency room, prediction of the number of available beds in the intensive care units, nurse scheduling, delay of arrival of patients, and ordering of the proper amount of therapeutic materials, are introduced and discussed. From the perspective of administrators or clinicians, however, it may not be easy to master the methodology that requires considerable mathematical background or apply the theories to practice directly. Therefore, it is suggested that more practical and relatively simple analytical methods should be applied. Also, having a more positive attitude toward improving the current performance (e.g., a belief that 'we can always be better than now'), and paying attention to improving the job satisfaction by addressing problems, with experimental spirit and data-driven decision management.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.285-301
• /
• 2010

Purpose: The study was aimed at qualitatively enhancing and promoting a home visiting nursing program established in Korea on July 1, 2008, as part of the Long-Term Care Insurance for the Elderly program. Methods: Structural, procedural and consequential aspects of home visiting nursing care wereclassified on the horizontal axis by applying the standard notions for the evaluation of medical care (Donabedian, 1998). At the same time, the home visiting nursing care service support system and the service provision system weredivided on the vertical axis with reference to the accreditation standards for home visiting nursing care organizations suggested by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO, 2008). The data were collected from June 4, 2008 to October 27, 2008, and were analyzed using SPSS ver. 15.0. Results: Twenty-two (proposed) standards, centered on the standard elements under the conceptual framework of the study, were developed, and comprised structural aspects (n=10), procedural aspects (n=6) and consequential aspects (n=6). Those criteria and indicators underwent two content validity surveys among groups of home visiting nursing care research and training experts. The research produced 22 proposed standards, 50 proposed criteria and 166 proposed indicators. Conclusion: The home visiting nursing care standards developed pursuant to the Long-Term Care Insurance for the Elderly Act and the applicability of these standards need to be verified by home visiting nurses. These proposed standards should prove useful in developing an assessment tool to encourage the qualitative enhancement of visiting nursing care in Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.202-209
• /
• 2018

Health care has two different facets. One is commodity and another is a right of human being. Health care as a commodity is utilized by demand approach in market. Demand is determined by economic factors such as price and income. From the last third of the 19th century until the early 1920s, priority of sickness insurance was replacing the income that workers lost as a result of illness and injury. By the 1920s, the capacity of applied biological and medical science was remarkably developed. Development of medical science stimulated the cost of medical care, and the burden of increased medical care cost required new role of medical care security system. In 1942, Beveridge report was published in United Kingdom, and health care was considered as a right of human being. In 1948, United Nations declared heath care as a right in the Universal Declaration of Human Right. In most countries introduced new medical care security policy based on health care as a right. The viewing health care as a commodity must be shifted toward need based care as a right. Need were understood to rest on demographic, epidemiological, scientific, and medical knowledge factors. Bring needed care to the population could best be achieved institutionally by a hierarchy of provider organizations, guided by planning bodies, which would provide comprehensive benefits. In Korea, health care in social health insurance (SHI) is considered as a commodity not a right. However, health policies under SHI must be need approach based on health care as a right. Mismatch between health policies and ideology of SHI made big troubles. It is important to realize ideology of SHI for good health policies.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.183-202
• /
• 1997

Health care organizations have been faced with financial difficulties under turbulent health care environment. This situation led hospitals to concentrate their efforts to improve their managerial efficiency in various ways. This study aims to evaluate technical efficiency of 31 tertiary hospitals in Korea and find determinants which are closely related with hospital efficiency. Data envelopment analysis(DEA) and Tobit Model were adopted for study. For the analysis, human resource factors such as number of physicians, nurses, and administrative staffs are used as input variables and the number of inpatients and outpatients) are used as output variables. Among 31 hospitals, in CCR model, 8 hositals showed efficiency score 1 which means they have been operated in very efficient ways and BCC model showed 13 of 31 hospitals as efficient organizations. Next, we analyzed determinants which are closely related with hospital efficiency. By using Tobit model, the study showed hospital size, Quality of care, value added per capita, and revenue per patient were closely related with hospital efficiency, However, it appeared that financial status of hospitals(i.e : making profit or not) was not related with hospital efficiency.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.198-202
• /
• 2014

Background: The economy is being lifted by the new concept of robotics, but we cannot be sure of all the possible benefits. At this early stage, it therefore becomes important to find out the possible benefits/limitations associated with robotics, so that the positives can be capitalized, established, and developed further for the employment and motivation of employees in the health care sector, for overall economic development. The negatives should also be further studied and mitigated. Methods: This study is an exploratory research, based on secondary data, such as books on topics related to robotics, websites, public websites of concerned departments for data and statistics, journals, newspapers and magazines, websites of health care providers, and different printed materials (brochures, etc). Results: The impact of robotics has both positive and negative impacts on the employment and motivation of employees in the retail sector. So far, there has been no substantial research done into robotics, especially in the health care sector. Conclusion: Replacing employees with robots is an inevitable choice for organizations in the service sector, more so in the health care sector because of the challenging and sometimes unhealthy working environments, but, at the same time, the researchers propose that it should be done in a manner that helps in improving the employment and motivation of employees in this sector.