• Health Policy and Management
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.326-342
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• 2013

Background: Engaging and Involving stakeholders who have different interests in changing health care policies are difficult task. As the literature on the governance in Korean health care field is rare, this study aims to provide empirical evidence of 'governing health policy'-the ways health care policy is made, implemented, and evaluated from a political perspective. Methods: The authors of this study conducted interviews with elites in policy and clinical areas, which was considered to be the most effective approach to gather in-depth information about the background of changing payment policy as well as the barriers or contributors for making the policy sustainable. A total of 14 experts (3 government officials, 2 representatives from medical profession, 3 professors form academic field, and 6 healthcare providers from New DRG pilot program hospitals) participated in 2 hour long interviews. Results: There was a perception gap of the feasibility and substantiality of new payment system among elites. The score was higher in government officers than those in scholars or clinical experts. Next, the interviewees indicated that Korean New DRG might not sustain without significant efforts to improving democratic aspects of the governance. It is also notable that all interviewees except healthcare providers provided negative expectation of the contribution of new payment system to increase administration efficiency. For clinical efficiency, every stakeholders perceived there was no increased efficiency after introduction of New DRG payment. Like general perception, there was a wide gap between the perception of stakeholders in quality change after implementing the new payment system. Finally, interview participants negatively assumed about the likelihood of New DRG to remain a case of successful reforms. Conclusion: This study implied the importance of social consensus and the governance of health policy.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 2014

Purpose: Globally, Paradigm and corresponding awareness of mental health and mental illness is changing. At this point, social policy and cultural consciousness must also be changed. Medical facilities to contain the recognition of the people of that period and the social, cultural background. Social situation changes, science has developed and facility changes. So, awareness of people for the facility also changes. Thus, this study consider the meaning and features of the facility with change of psychiatry and the concept of disease in each period. Finally, the purpose of this study is to analyze the development of Mental Healthcare Facilities before 19th Century. Methods: In this study, focusing on the literature study, it investigated the developmental process of mental healthcare facilities. Results: As the result of this study can be summarized as followings. In ancient times, facility for the harmony of body and mental appeared by means of supernaturalism and rationalism. In the middle ages, facility for restraint and control appeared by means of religious absolutism and mysticism. In the early modern period, facility for therapy appeared by means of humanism and enlightenment. Implications: Unlike other healthcare facilities, Mental healthcare facilities have a unique history. Based on the point of view of each period, it appears form and characteristics of mental healthcare facilities are different.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.183-192
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• 2014

Purpose: This study was aimed to identify the status of utilization of healthcare services and self-care behaviors, knowledge level and influencing choice factors of non-prescription drugs (OTCs) on consumers since sales of OTCs at the outside of pharmacy in Korea, and to confirm the changes in perception of consumers for OTCs policy through check of perception level for current OTCs policy. Methods: Data was collected from April 2014 to May 2014 from questionnaires by 418 adults who are in university located in Seoul or live in Seoul Metropolitan area but not health science major and healthcare providers. Results: The female gender was 56.6% and University students were 73.9%. The ratio by age was as follows: below 25 (60.9%), 26-30 (18.2%), 30-40s (14.9%) and 50-60s (6.0%). The knowledge level of OTCs for use of medicine, dose and side effects was generally low and especially they knew little how to deal with side effects after taking OTCs on sale at the outside of pharmacy, even though over one year has passed since the policy. The proportion of those who thought the current OTCs policy has problems regarding safety issues since the policy was very high and it was also high that the study group thought there are problems with the current way to sale OTCs and educate employees. Conclusion: After selling OTCs at the outside of pharmacy, the consumers still lacked knowledge of OTCs and did not get correct information properly. Especially, they had little information about the way to deal with side effects after taking OTCs. Public policy should be based on the health of the people and the public health is a national health priority. When all these things are taken into consideration, the government has to strengthen the OTCs policy and provide a safer environment with the accurate drug information for people than developing OTCs policy in the future.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.51-62
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• 2016

Background: The publicness concept in healthcare has been built to its social consensus relying on historical context, with the result that the meaning of publicness has a great diversity and heterogeneous nature in Korea. Thus it needs to be addressed to clarify the meaning and boundary of the publicness concept in healthcare, so as to discuss its social implication. Methods: In order to investigate whether or how the publicness concept is used in healthcare, we conducted a text network analysis in 779 news articles from 8 Korean daily newspapers over a recent 5-year period. Results: The publicness concept was closely related to medicine and medical institution, and formed a conceptual network with public health, medicine, welfare, patient, government, Jin-ju city, and health. Keywords relating publicness tended to be similar between four major newspapers; however, the association with Jin-ju city, government, and society was noticeable in Kyunghyang Shinmun and Hankyoreh, and so was patient and service in Dong-A Ilbo. Conclusion: Publicness and medicine was closely associated, and government seemed to remain as a main actor for public interest. Publicness was related with a variety of actors and values, with its expanded boundary. The different contexts of publicness by newspapers might reflect each ideological inclination. The textual importance of publicness was relatively low in part, which suggests that publicness was used in a loose sense or as a routine.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.35-47
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• 2018

Background: The purpose of this study is to elucidate the context of medical experience and the perception of unmet healthcare of elderly people with chronic diseases based on in-depth interview data. Methods: We carried out in-depth interviews with 10 elderly people with chronic diseases using semi-structured questionnaires based on literature review. The in-depth interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis; one qualitative research methodology, three core meaning categories, and four attributes associated with unmet healthcare were ultimately derived. Results: The context of the medical experience were based on the following three categories: (1) discomfort due to diseases and high medical needs, (2) the poor community medical environment and difficulties in accessing to metropolitan medical institutions, and (3) inconvenience caused by long waiting time and side effects of medicine. In addition, the elderly with chronic disease realized the unmet healthcare as (1) the availability related to the desired medical institutions at the right time, (2) the affordability related to their economic capacity, (3) the effectiveness of the medical services they experienced, and (4) the appropriateness related to receiving medical services in a pleasant environment. Conclusion: The perception of unmet healthcare among the elderly with chronic disease is the result of interaction of multi-level and multi-dimensional factors related with their medical experience.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.7-18
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to derive periodical characteristics of the policy for the elderly in Japan by investigating the changes of social security system. The target period of 1946~2000 in Japan was divided into 3 periods for the understanding of periodical characteristics in the focuses of medical, welfare and pension system for the elderly; establishment of concept for the social security and welfare of Japan(1946,1950), appearance of social security system and the elderly problem(to late 1960's), infra construction for aging society(to late 1980's), development and reappraisal of practical policy for the elderly(to late 1990's). It is expected that this paper could provide basic data for the elderly-related policy making in our country.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.5 no.8
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• pp.7-14
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• 1999

Current Korean healthcare facilities face on a difficult period as much as financial difficulty in Korean economy. Most of all the hospitals have difficulty in minus profit margin and hospital investments are also reducing rapidly. Probably, these seem to set in the period of re-organizing its structures and enhancing productivity from the rapidly growing period, which was to concentrate its resources and prefer large scaled structures. Analyzing the developing process and future trend in the U. S. health care facilities, already experienced in financial difficulty of current Korean health care facility in 70s thru. 80s, this paper is to present directions in future Korean health care policy and healthcare facility planning.

• 한국경영정보학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.114-120
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• 2008

While ubiquitous healthcare (u-health) services were expected to propagate along with conventional healthcare services, recent progress indicated rather limited market acceptance. In this paper, we investigated the fundamental causes of why the consumer acceptance level of u-health services has been low. We draw upon innovation adoption theories to analyze the consumer readiness of the typical u-health services. The comparative analysis between innovative u-health services and conventional services was performed using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Subsequently, policy and business implications including technological breakthrough insights were discussed based on the customer perspective comparative adoption analysis. The propositions captured through this study provide useful insight to further studies on u-health services.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.285-290
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• 2014

In these days the patient can be easy to see the treatment results at home without going directly to hospital. Despite the many advantages that the patient is got optimum service timely, the currently used personal healthcare devices have no compatibility because the manufacturer use the proprietary software and hardware protocols. For these issues, standardization is required between the set-top box and the individual healthcare devices. In this paper, we designed the healthcare set-top box possible to biometric data transmission by using a standard IEEE P11073 between the device and the set-top box. Because the set-top box using IEEE P11073 standardization can transfer data independently, we are expected to make it contribute significantly to the healthcare business.

• Journal of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Probes
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.95-98
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• 2018

Recently, South and North Korea summits agreed to implement the cooperation and promotion of medical healthcare at the third inter-Korean summit in Pyeongyang on September 18, 2018. Therefore, the South Korean government and its affiliated organizations have been looking for ways to establish a specific plan for support and exchanges in the field of healthcare and medical technology. In the background of the above new policy, radiation medicine technology can also contribute to the exchange in the field of healthcare and science & technology for the peaceful coexistence of one Korea. In this review, we analyzed and showed the status of healthcare and radiation medicine infrastructure in North Korea in order to further develop a plan to share the benefits of radiation medicine with North Korea in the exchange of healthcare and science & technology.