• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.62-71
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• 2020

Background: The purpose of this study is to analyze the current status and factors of elderly patients' hospitalization for hip replacement, knee replacement, and general spine surgery. Methods: National health insurance data in 2018 was provided by the National Health Insurance Service. We used multiple regression to analyze factors associated with the medical utilization of hip replacement, knee replacement, and general spine surgery in elderly patients over 65 years old. The dependent variables are the length of stay and total health expenditure. The independent variables are the demographic-social factors (sex, age, region, insurance type, income level) and surgery-related factors (institution type, location of the hospital, surgery classification). Results: The most common factor affecting surgery was the location of medical institutions. Compared with the medical institutions located in metropolitan, the length of stay in rural medical institutions was higher and total health expenditure was lower. The lower quartile of income, the higher the length of stay and total health expenditure. In addition, the variables of age, type of health insurance, and type of medical institution were statistically significant. Conclusion: In this study, we confirmed the effect of sociodemographic factors and medical institution factors on the Healthcare Utilization of spinal and joint surgery.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.185-196
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• 2018

This study investigates the social network among authors to improve the quality of Panel researches. Korea Health Panel (KHP), implemented by the collaborative work between KIHASA (Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs) and NHIC (National Health Insurance Service) since 2008, provides a critical infrastructure for policy making and management for insurance system and healthcare service. Using bibliographic data extracted from academic databases, eighty articles were extracted in domestic and international journals from 2008 to 2014, April. Data were analyzed by NetMiner 4.0, social network analysis software, to identify the extent to which authors are involved in healthcare use research and the patterns of collaboration between them. Analysis reveals that most authors publish a very small number of articles and collaborate within tightly knit circles. Centrality measures confirm these findings by revealing that only a small percentage of the authors are structurally dominant, and influence the flow of communication among others. It leads to the discovery of dependencies between the elements of the co-author network such as affiliates in health panel communities. Based on these findings, we recommend that Korea Health Panel could benefit from cultivating a wider base of influential authors and promoting broader collaborations.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.121-139
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• 2009

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to investigate regional commitment index(RGI) of hospital in Korea, and the relationship RGI and hospital characteristics, such as foundation, region, size. Therefore, we are to suggest fundamental information to make and evaluate healthcare resource policy in hospital- and government-level. Methods : The 'Patient Survey 2002(administered by Ministry of Health and Social Welfare(MOHW)' was analyzed. We selected the patient data of the hospitals above 100 beds. Then, we calculated the RGI, number of same cases divided by all cases in each hospital. By using SPSS/win ver 14.0, statistical analysis such as t-test, ANOVA, correlational and regression analysis was carried out. Results : The results are as follows. 1. Overall mean and standard deviation of RGI were revealed as 0.805${\pm}$0.225 in inpatients, and 0.871${\pm}$0.184 in outpatient. The median of inpatients' and outpatients' RGI were 0.890 and 0.933. The RGI of inpatients of private hospitals were revealed significantly higher than that of the public(public: 0.727, private: 0.822). However, outpatients' RGI was not revealed as significantly different. 2. The RGI of general specialty hospitals were significantly lower than others, therefore we could think that more inpatients and outpatients of general specialty hospitals flowed in from others province or metropolitan cities than other hospital types. 3. The RGI of hospitals holding above 400 beds were significantly lower than others in inpatients and outpatients. 5. The RGI of hospitals were significantly different among sixteen province and metropolitan cities. The RGI inpatients of Gwangju and Daejon metropolitan city were lowest sub-group(0.659, 0.664), and the RGI inpatients of Jeju was revealed as highest, 0.979. 6. Available beds, total doctors, and total employees were negatively correlated with RGI of inpatients and outpatients. 7. The significant influencing factors to RGI of inpatients and outpatients were appeared samely such as available beds, wide healthcare region, hospital size, and foundation type. Conclusions : It is considered that RGI of hospital represent competitive power in healthcare market. Also, the competitive advantage and quality of hospital clustered by characteristics could made out by RGI. Therefore, the results of this study would be useful to develop and evaluate hospital policy of individual hospital or local government.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.153-159
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• 2012

Now a days, U-healthcare comes into the spotlight as a new business model which combines RFID technology with medical service in the well-being era and IT popularization. U-healthcare service needs a method that can deals with hand-writing, overlap data, forgery and falsification of data, difference between information version that happen in medical process because of graft between RFID technology and u-healthcare. This paper proposes RFID based user certification protocol to protect user's privacy who gets medical service through U-healthcare. In the protocol, secret information of patient does the XOR with the secret key that is created in the hospital to reconsider the stability of security system of U-healthcare and user's data forgery and falsification and privacy and then saves it in the secret key field of patient in DB table. Also, it informs the case of illegal access to certification server and make it approved the access of u-healthcare service by differentiating whether u-healthcare is illegal or not.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.187-193
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• 2017

Objects Internet-based healthcare services provide healthcare and healthcare services, including measurement of user's vital signs, diagnosis and prevention of diseases, through a variety of object internet devices. However, there is a problem that new security vulnerability can occur when inter-working with the security weakness of each element technology because the internet service based on the object Internet provides a service by integrating various element technologies. In this paper, we propose a user privacy protection model that can securely process user's healthcare information from a third party when delivering healthcare information of users using wearable equipment based on IoT in a mobile environment to a server. The proposed model provides attribute values for each healthcare sensor information so that the user can safely handle, store, and store the healthcare information, thereby managing the privacy of the user in a hierarchical manner. As a result of the performance evaluation, the throughput of IoT device is improved by 10.5% on average and the server overhead is 9.9% lower than that of the existing model.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.49-58
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• 2021

Due to the increasing interest in wellness aroused by the aging population and the pursuing feature of active old age, Korean elderly set importance on long life with their healthy condition. Following the change in the paradigm of the medical delivery system from hospital-oriented, treatment-oriented to personal-centered and self-care, Service design application of Smart Healthcare for the elderly became valuable. Smart Healthcare is a healthcare service provided through the fusion of ICT technologies including mobile/wearable devices, IoT, big data, and information technology, and it is utilized to prevent diseases managing abundant health information and living habits. As a methodology for delivering such Smart Healthcare to the elderly, Service design can be adopted. Therefore, this study would like to present the perquisites of Smart Healthcare design for the elderly through analyzing the results from in-depth interview methods between the elderly and medical staff. As a result of this study, guidelines for Service design application of health vulnerability management for the elderly utilizing smart phones were presented. Therefore, this study presented four prerequisites composed of 'high level of supplementation and ethical decision making', 'improvement of inequality in accessibility and experience', 'resolving problems in policy implementation' and 'user-friendliness' for the Smart Healthcare service design for the elderly. Overall, Service design is expected to play an innovative role in improving the quality of life for the elderly through the process of collecting and delivering information on Smart Healthcare centered on the experience of the elderly.

• Asia-pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology
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• v.7 no.10
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• pp.865-878
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• 2017

To realize the healthy life of human, mental, physical, and environmental factors must be managed continuously and stably. In order to manage human health, the 21st century healthcare field is essential ongoing interactions and convergence with ICT technologies. Such demands have created a convergence of technologies (fusion technology) in combination with the heterogeneous technologies. And, with the convergence of medical technology and ICT technologies, the development of personalized therapy environments is created. Advances in ICT-converged healthcare services are progressing due to the development of diverse wearable devices. Such ICT fusion system is exponentially increasing the complexity of the ICT convergence healthcare system and is resulting in various technical, institutional, environmental, and cultural issues. This study explores the status of developments in ICT healthcare technologies from the past to date, identifies major technology and policy issues to address these challenges. Finally it will recommend healthcare policies and a future road-map.

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

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.385-386
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• 2021

The 2022 Presidential election is approaching. Because health policies are intimately connected to other policies and involve multiple stakeholders, it is difficult to promote policy changes. Hence, the presidential election, during which policymakers are replaced, is a great timing for making policy improvements. Several important policies have been introduced and promoted throughout the presidential election process. However, these policies have been implemented without going through sufficient discussion among the experts but rather through the voices of minority groups with stronger political will. This eventually posed an obstacle to the balanced development of the entire health care system. The current medical system faces challenges that need to be addressed in the medium and long term. In particular, we should be wary of the populistic approach. We look forward to seeing more policy commitments, proposed through the evidence-based policy process and sufficient amount of discussion among the experts.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.30-38
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• 2017

Background: This study aims to analyze the behavioral changes of healthcare providers and influencing factors after the reviewer unification of auto insurance medical benefit claims by an independent review agency. Methods: The comparison data were collected from the second half of 2013 and the same period of 2014. The key indicators are the number of admission days, the number of outpatient visits, inpatient ratio, inpatient medical expenses, and outpatient medical expenses. Results: Four indicators (number of admission days, number of outpatient visits, inpatient ratio, and outpatient medical expenses) showed statistically significant drops, while one indicator (inpatient medical expenses) showed no significant change. Conclusion: The reviewer unification of auto insurance medical benefit claims by an independent review agency showed significant reduction in cost and patient days.