• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.198-203
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• 2019

Background Professional affiliation between medical centers and professional sports teams can be mutually beneficial in the provision of healthcare and marketing strategy. Anecdotal evidence suggests a link between trauma volume and sporting events; however, there is limited data. This study aims to characterize the incidence of operative hand and facial trauma during professional baseball home games. Methods A retrospective review of surgical cases for traumatic hand or facial injuries at a level 1 center between 1999 and 2012 was performed. Demographic information including date of injury, admission status, and operative repair were collected. Patients were grouped based on whether their trauma occurred on the date of a home game. Results Operative hand and facial trauma occurred at a rate of 33.4 injuries per 100 days with home games, compared to 22.2 injuries per 100 days (incidence rate ratios, 1.50; 95% confidence interval, 1.34-1.69). When home games were played, patients were more likely to present as a result of motorcycle accidents (3.1% vs. 1.5%; P=0.04) or bicycle accidents (5.0% vs. 2.6%; P=0.01). Other mechanisms of trauma were not statistically different. There was an increase incidence of injuries during home games in August; weekly variability showed an increased incidence during the weekends. Conclusions There was an increased rate of operative hand and facial injuries on dates with professional home games. The incidence of injuries during home games was higher in the late summer and on the weekends. Further analysis may allow improved resource allocation and strategies for injury prevention and treatment.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.759-769
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• 2021

Objective: To evaluate the application of laplacian-regularized mean apparent propagator (MAPL)-MRI to brain glioma-induced corticospinal tract (CST) injury. Materials and Methods: This study included 20 patients with glioma adjacent to the CST pathway who had undergone structural and diffusion MRI. The entire CSTs of the affected and healthy sides were reconstructed, and the peritumoral CSTs were manually segmented. The morphological characteristics of the CST (track number, average length, volume, displacement of the affected CST) were examined and the diffusion parameter values, including fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD), radial diffusivity (RD), mean squared displacement (MSD), q-space inverse variance (QIV), return-to-origin probability (RTOP), return-to-axis probabilities (RTAP), and return-to-plane probabilities (RTPP) along the entire and peritumoral CSTs, were calculated. The entire and peritumoral CST characteristics of the affected and healthy sides as well as those relative CST characteristics of the patients with motor weakness and normal motor function were compared. Results: The track number, volume, MD, RD, MSD, QIV, RTAP, RTOP, and RTPP of the entire and peritumoral CSTs changed significantly for the affected side, whereas the AD and FA changed significantly only in the peritumoral CST (p < 0.05). In patients with motor weakness, the relative MSD of the entire CST, QIV of the entire and peritumoral CSTs, and the AD, MD, RD of the peritumoral CST were significantly higher, whereas the RTPP of the entire and peritumoral CSTs and the RTOP of the peritumoral CST were significantly lower than those in patients with normal motor function (p < 0.05 for all). In contrast, no significant changes were found in the CST morphological characteristics, FA, or RTAP (p > 0.05 for all). Conclusion: MAPL-MRI is an effective approach for evaluating microstructural changes after CST injury. Its sensitivity may improve when using the peritumoral CST features.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.97-114
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• 1996

INSTRODUCTION Service quality is, unlike goods quality, an abstract and elusive constuct. Service quality and its requirements are not easily understood by consumers, and also present some critical research problems. However, quality is very important to marketers and consumers in that it has many strategic benefits in contributing to profitability of marketing activities and consumers' problem-solving activities. Moreover, despite the phenomenal growth of medical service sector, few researchers have attempted to define and model medical service quality. Especially, little research has focused on the evaluation of medical service quality and patient satisfaction from the perspectives of both the provider and the patient. As competition intensifies and patients are demanding higher quality of medical service, medical service quality and patient satisfaction has emerged as a critical research topic. The major purpose of this article is to explore the concept of medical service quality and its evaluation from both nurse and patient perspectives. This article attempts to achieve its purpose by (1)classfying critical service attibutes into threecategories(satisfiers, hygiene factors, and performance factors). (2)measuring the relative importance of need criteria, (3)evaluating SERVPERF model and SERVQUAL model in medical service sector, and (4)identifying the relationship between perceived quality and overall patient satisfaction. METHOD Data were gathered from a sample of 217 patients and 179 nurses in Seoul-area general hospitals. From the review of previous literature, 50 survey items representing various facets of the medical service quality were developed to form a questionnaire. A five-point scale ranging from "Strongly Agree"(5) to "Strongly Disagree"(1) accompanied each statement(expectation statements, perception statements, and importance statements). To measure overall satisfaction, a seven-point scale was used, ranging from "Very Satisfied"(7) to "Very Dissatisfied"(1) with no verbal labels for scale points 2 through 6 RESULTS In explaining the relationship between perceived performance and overall satisfaction, only 31 variables out of original 50 survey items were proven to be statistically significant. Hence, a penalty-reward analysis was performed on theses 31 critical attributes to find out 17 satisfiers, 8 hygiene factors, and 4 performance factors in patient perspective. The role(category) of each service quality attribute in relation to patient satisfaction was com pared across two groups, that is, patients and nurses. They were little overlapped, suggesting that two groups had different sets of 'perceived quality' attributes. Principal components factor analyses of the patients' and nurses' responses were performed to identify the underlying dimensions for the set of performance(experience) statements. 28 variables were analyzed by using a varimax rotation after deleting three obscure variables. The number of factors to be extracted was determined by evaluating the eigenvalue scores. Six factors wereextracted, accounting for 57.1% of the total variance. Reliability analysis was performed to refine the factors further. Using coefficient alpha, scores of .84 to .65 were obtained. Individual-item analysis indicated that all statements in each of the factors should remain. On 26 attributes of 31 critical service quality attributes, there were gaps between actual patient's importance of need criteria and nurse perceptions of them. Those critical attributes could be classified into four categories based on the relative importance of need criteria and perceived performance from the perspective of patient. This analysis is useful in developing strategic plans for performance improvement. (1) top priorities(high importance and low performance) (in this study)- more health-related information -accuracy in billing - quality of food - appointments at my convenience - information about tests and treatments - prompt service of business office -adequacy of accommodations(elevators, etc) (2) current strengths(high importance and high performance) (3)unnecessary strengths(low importance and high performance) (4) low priorities(low importance and low performance) While 26 service quality attributes of SERPERF model were significantly related to patient satisfation, only 13 attributes of SERVQUAL model were significantly related. This result suggested that only experience-based norms(SERVPERF model) were more appropriate than expectations to serve as a benchmark against which service experiences were compared(SERVQUAL model). However, it must be noted that the degree of association to overall satisfaction was not consistent. There were some gaps between nurse percetions and patient perception of medical service performance. From the patient's viewpoint, "personal likability", "technical skill/trust", and "cares about me" were most significant positioning factors that contributed patient satisfaction. DISCUSSION This study shows that there are inconsistencies between nurse perceptions and patient perceptions of medical service attributes. Also, for service quality improvement, it is most important for nurses to understand what satisfiers, hygiene factors, and performance factors are through two-way communications. Patient satisfaction should be measured, and problems identified should be resolved for survival in intense competitive market conditions. Hence, patient satisfaction monitoring is now becoming a standard marketing tool for healthcare providers and its role is expected to increase.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.129-138
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• 2012

Despite of increasing pressure of opening to free for medical market by an advanced nation and increasing number of portal websites for health information, there have been few studies on the issues of enhancing the service quality of health information websites. The survey exhibited that the quality factors mainly affect significant and satisfied level of health information websites were usability, information structure and contents, interaction, and revisiting. This study was conducted to develop the consumer-focused quality factor of health information websites using WebQual model which was valued at efficient evaluation tool for this information system The methods taken in this research was to survey quality factors for significant and satisfied level of 323 consumers live in Chungcheong-do which is based on 48 questionnaires of WebQual quality factors. Our research extracted quality factors, usability, information quality (information structure and contents), interaction (personalisation and privacy) about view of criticality and satisfaction and relevant degree of revisiting. The research results presented in the paper will provide an efficient way of installing healthcare websites, moreover stone toward a marketing strategy for the consumer focus website provides under fierce competition.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.41-52
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• 2015

Purpose - Given globalization, the new niche market of medical tourism is likely to experience sustainable growth for various reasons, such as aging populations and a shift in the medical consumerism paradigm toward prevention. Importantly, understanding medical customers' behavior is necessary to benefit from a competitive advantage in this industry. The existing research primarily accessed the key factors of medical quality and costs to explain health customers' behavior but is limited in terms of enabling an understanding of the decision process. This limitation exists because, given the intangibility and greater associated risks in the highly professional industry of international medical tourism, most customers lack the knowledge and experience needed to evaluate the central factors-such as the medical competence of health care countries-before purchases. Therefore, they actively search for useful information through various distributions to reduce uncertainty and to make better choices. Interestingly, most of these information channels are associated with word-of-mouth (WOM). However, no evidence is found in the literature to estimate the effect of WOM in the medical tourism field. Thus, this study focuses on WOM to explore its interaction with key medical characteristic factors and the attractiveness of destinations referred to by sources. This study also affects customers' evaluations and, in turn, influences their intention to seek health care services abroad. Research design, data, and methodology - The literature review addressed an interesting research model for estimating the relations among WOM, medical characteristics, attractiveness, and customers' choice intention regarding international health care. In the key economic regions in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Guangdong, 2,500 survey questionnaires were distributed to potential customers of different ages, education, and income levels. A resulting 1,717 (68.68 percent of the original 2,500) usable surveys were obtained for analysis. Moderated regression analysis was used to determine the effects of WOM in the decision process regarding international health care destinations. Results - The results indicate that WOM is a good moderator of the relationships between the factors evaluated by sources and customers. More importantly, the WOM effects reflect the factors of tie strength, credibility, and vividness. The results also reveal that, given the moderating role of WOM, the intention of potential Chinese customers to seek the referred health care country varies according to the medical characteristics of medical competency and reputation as evaluated by customers. In contrast, the travel attractiveness of the attractions, facilities, accessibility, and social environment are critical determinants of destination choice intention. Conclusions - The moderating role of WOM has been confirmed through the international healthcare destination selection process. Medical tourism managers should user WOM as an effective marketing tool for industry development. Specially, marketers should consider the effects of WOM determinants, such as tie strength, credibility, and vividness, to develop an effective strategy. Furthermore, this study estimates the factors that affect customers' selection of medical tourism destinations. Health care managers or policy makers should consider a broad variety of variables that may attract more Chinese customers to international health care.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.199-207
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• 2010

For us, there is virtually no distinction between being a responsible citizen and a successful business... they are one and the same for Wal-Mart today." ~ Lee Scott, al-Mart CEO after the 2005 Katrina disaster; cited in Green to Gold (Esty and Winston 2006). Lee Scott's statement signaled a new era in sustainability as manufacturers and retailers around the globe watched the world's largest mass merchandiser confirm its intentions with respect to sustainability. For decades, the environmental movement has grown, slowly bleeding over into the corporate world. Companies have been born, products have been created, academic journals have been launched, and government initiatives have been undertaken - all in the pursuit of sustainability (Peattie and Crane 2005). While progress has been admittedly slower than some may desire, the emergence and entrance of environmentally concerned mass merchandisers has done much to help with sustainable efforts. To better understand this movement, we incorporate the perspectives of both executives and consumers involved in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. This research relies on three underlying themes: (1) Conceptual and anecdotal evidence suggests that companies undertake sustainability initiatives for a plethora of reasons, (2) The number of sustainability initiatives continues to increase in the consumer packaged goods industries, and (3) That it is, therefore, necessary to explore the role that sustainability plays in the minds of consumers. In light of these themes, surveys were administered to and completed by 143 college students and 101 business executives to assess a number of variables in regards to sustainability including willingness-to-pay, behavioral intentions, attitudes, willingness-to-pay, and preferences. Survey results indicate that the top three reasons why executives believe sustainability to be important include (1) the opportunity for profitability, (2) the fulfillment of an obligation to the environment, and (3) a responsibility to customers and shareholders. College students identified the top three reasons as (1) a responsibility to the environment, (2) an indebtedness to future generations, and (3) an effective management of resources. While the rationale for supporting sustainability efforts differed between college students and executives, the executives and consumers reported similar responses for the majority of the remaining sustainability issues. Furthermore, when we asked consumers to assess the importance of six key issues (healthcare, economy, education, crime, government spending, and environment) previously identified as important to consumers by Gallup Poll, protecting the environment only ranked fourth out of the six (Carlson 2005). While all six of these issues were identified as important, the top three that emerged as most important were (1) improvements in education, (2) the economy, and (3) health care. As the pursuit and incorporation of sustainability continues to evolve, so too will the expected outcomes. New definitions of performance that reflect the social/business benefits as well as the lengthened implementation period are relevant and warranted (Ehrenfeld 2005; Hitchcock and Willard 2006). We identified three primary categories of outcomes based on a literature review of both anecdotal and conceptual expectations of sustainability: (1) improvements in constituent satisfaction, (2) differentiation opportunities, and (3) financial rewards. Within each of these categories, several specific outcomes were identified resulting in eleven different outcomes arising from sustainability initiatives. Our survey results indicate that the top five most likely outcomes for companies that pursue sustainability are: (1) green consumers will be more satisfied, (2) company image will be better, (3) corporate responsibility will be enhanced, (4) energy costs will be reduced, and (5) products will be more innovative. Additionally, to better understand the interesting intersection between the environmental "identity" of a consumer and the willingness to manifest that identity with marketplace purchases, we extended prior research developed by Experian Research (2008). Accordingly, respondents were categorized as one of four types of green consumers (Behavioral Greens, Think Greens, Potential Greens, or True Browns) to garner a better understanding of the green consumer in addition to assisting with a more effective interpretation of results. We assessed these consumers' willingness to engage in eco-friendly behavior by evaluating three options: (1) shopping at retailers that support environmental initiatives, (2) paying more for products that protect the environment, and (3) paying higher taxes so the government can support environmental initiatives. Think Greens expressed the greatest willingness to change, followed by Behavioral Greens, Potential Greens, and True Browns. These differences were all significant at p<.01. Further Conclusions and Implications We have undertaken a descriptive study which seeks to enhance our understanding of the strategic domain of sustainability. Specifically, this research fills a gap in the literature by comparing and contrasting the sustainability views of business executives and consumers with specific regard to preferences, intentions, willingness-to-pay, behavior, and attitudes. For practitioners, much can be gained from a strategic standpoint. In addition to the many results already reported, respondents also reported than willing to pay more for products that protect the environment. Other specific results indicate that female respondents consistently communicate a stronger willingness than males to pay more for these products and to shop at eco-friendly retailers. Knowing this additional information, practitioners can now have a more specific market in which to target and communicate their sustainability efforts. While this research is only an initial step towards understanding similarities and differences among practitioners and consumers regarding sustainability, it presents original findings that contribute to both practice and research. Future research should be directed toward examining other variables affecting this relationship, as well as other specific industries.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.27-40
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• 2014

The functions of urban open space, which embraces community revitalization, are diverse. It is the means of public healthcare, learning centers for children, hub of arts and cultural programs, as well as promoter of urban tourism. However, in-depth discourse and research on the topic of urban open spaces has been limited so far. Hence, this study aims to investigate the motivations and satisfaction of visitation based on four representative waterfront open space in Seoul; Cheongyecheon Waterfront, Seoul Forest Park, Seonyudo Park and Banpo Hangang Park. The methods of study are literature review, observation investigation, and questionnaire survey. The findings are analyzed through the Exploratory Factor Analysis, Reliability Analysis, ANOVA Analysis and Regression Analysis by SPSS 18.0. The results of the study are as follows. First, urban waterfront open spaces in Seoul has 5 factors of visitor motivation; community amenity, nature access, cultural and educational assets, aesthetic enjoyment, and lastly means of escape. Second, factors of recognizing urban waterfront open spaces as community amenity and nature access indicate meaningful differences in visitor's perception by spatial characteristics. Third, distances between the destination and the visitor's residence influence significantly their perceived motivation. Close-range visitors perceived nature access as a principal factor, whilst medium to long-range visitors perceived visitation for aesthetic purposes more importantly. Lastly, the will to escape was shown as the influential factor in visitor satisfaction. Visiting open spaces for the enjoyment of nature and aesthetic purposes were factors that also closely relate to visitor satisfaction. In addition, it was found that there are different visitor motivations that influence visitor satisfaction in accordance with the spatial characteristics of each open space. In summary, it can be said that urban waterfront open space is a hybrid space connected to various types of urban contents beyond daily experiences. It was found that several visitor motivations including community development, design aesthetics, education and culture, entertainment, enjoyment of natural landscape, and relaxation, affect the overall satisfaction of the visiting experience. It is anticipated that the results of the study will be used by the local government in setting up strategies for the creation and management of successful urban waterfront open space, and for those involved in planning and design act as a starting point for spatial programming and amenities arrangement in accordance to the city's tourism and urban marketing approach.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.129-144
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• 2013

The consumption of coffee has been drastically increased last two decades. Now almost all the Korean adult people enjoy the coffee and diverse cultures related coffee have been spread widely in Korea. Therefore new marketing strategies are necessary to satisfy consumers according to ages, attitudes, and other characters. It has been continuously discussed whether the coffee gives negative impacts to health. Regardless of the discussions of the effects to health, now coffee became a part of modern daily lives. In this study the motivations of coffee consumption were classified to five; wellbeing motivation, refreshment motivation, social motivation, habitual motivation, and emotional motivation. Future intention of coffee consumption were also classified to five factors: sound mental intention, addictive intention, side-effect recovery intention, economic intention, and psychological intention. The survey was conducted in Seoul City and Kyeongki Province from January 3 to February 2, 2013. Total 500 questionaries were distributed and 450 were collected and 428 samples were used for the analysis of this study. The data were analyzed by SPSS Win 18 Version. The methods used in this study were factors analysis test, reliability test, validity test, t-testy, One-Way ANOVA, and regression analysis. The hypnosis in this study were as follows. First, The motivations of coffee consumption would influence to the intention of coffee consumption. Second, there would be statistical differences to the intention of coffee consumption according to the demographic characteristics. According to the result of the study, the motivation of coffee partially affected to the intention of coffee consumption. And there were statistical differences according to age, occupations, educational levels, and monthly incomes. The implications of this study were the factors related health and emotional feeling were considered more important than tastes and characters of coffee-shop that people thought more important before.

• Journal of Mushroom
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2017

Profitability of farmers has decreased mainly owing to low price while the gross amount of mushroom production has increased continuously in South Korea. In this regard, analyzing patterns of mushroom consumption is believed to be meaningful. We used a panel data set consisting of 667 families, from 2010 to 2015. Based on the panel data, mushroom consumption patterns of people living in city areas were examined. Multiple descriptive analysis methods and frequency analysis approaches were adopted in this study in terms of time and space dimensions, demographic properties, and purchase behaviors. The findings of this studyshow that mushroom purchase is highly dependent on seasonal events, which implies that the product consumption timing is predictable. In addition, yearly purchase amount patterns reflect that superstores have become the major mushroomtrading venues. This directly supports the need to establish supply chain capabilities for mushroom farmers so that they gain more bargaining power against enterprise-type groceries. Finally, functional features of mushroom can be linked with marketing promotion because purchase patterns demonstrate potential needs for healthcare food in mushroom categories. Based on the analyzed patterns, this paper provides insightful implications for policy makers who want to promote mushroom consumption.