• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.48-55
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• 2022

The color image of the brand comes first and is an important visual element that leads consumers to the consumption of the product. To express more effectively what the brand wants to convey through design, the printing market is striving to print accurate colors that match the intention. In 'offset printing' mainly used in printing, colors are often printed in CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key) colors. However, it is possible to print more accurate colors by making ink of the desired color instead of dotting CMYK colors. The resulting ink is called 'spot color' ink. Spot color ink is manufactured by repeating the process of mixing the existing inks. In this repetition of trial and error, the manufacturing cost of ink increases, resulting in economic loss, and environmental pollution is caused by wasted inks. In this study, a deep learning algorithm to predict printed spot colors was designed to solve this problem. The algorithm uses a single DNN (Deep Neural Network) model to predict printed spot colors based on the information of the paper and the proportions of inks to mix. More than 8,000 spot color ink data were used for learning, and all color was quantified by dividing the visible light wavelength range into 31 sections and the reflectance for each section. The proposed algorithm predicted more than 80% of spot color inks as very similar colors. The average value of the calculated difference between the actual color and the predicted color through 'Delta E' provided by CIE is 5.29. It is known that when Delta E is less than 10, it is difficult to distinguish the difference in printed color with the naked eye. The algorithm of this study has a more accurate prediction ability than previous studies, and it can be added flexibly even when new inks are added. This can be usefully used in real industrial sites, and it will reduce the attempts of the operator by checking the color of ink in a virtual environment. This will reduce the manufacturing cost of spot color inks and lead to improved working conditions for workers. In addition, it is expected to contribute to solving the environmental pollution problem by reducing unnecessarily wasted ink.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.87-106
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• 2018

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine the association between process quality of inpatient care and risk-adjusted, thirty-day potentially preventable hospital readmission (PPR) rates. Data Sources/Study Setting: This was an observational cross-sectional study of nonfederal acute-care hospitals located in two states California and Florida, discharging Medicare patients with a principal discharge diagnosis of heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, or pneumonia January through December 31, 2007. Data were obtained from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Database of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Hospital Compare database, and the American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals. Study Design: The dependent variable of this study is condition-specific, risk-adjusted, thirty-day potentially preventable hospital readmission (PPR). 3M's PPR software was utilized to determine whether a readmission was potentially preventable. The independent variable of this study is hospital performance for process quality of inpatient care, measured by hospital adherence to recommended processes of care. We used multivariate hierarchical logistic models, clustered by hospitals, to examine the relationship between condition-specific, risk-adjusted, thirty-day PPR rates and process quality of inpatient care, after taking clinical and socio-demographic characteristics of patients and structural and operational characteristics of hospitals into account. Findings: Better performance on the process quality metrics was associated with better patient outcome (i.e., low thirty-day PPR rates) in pneumonia, but not generally in two cardiovascular conditions (i.e., heart failure and acute myocardial infarction). Practical Implication: Adherence to the process quality metrics currently in use by CMS is associated with risk-adjusted, thirty-day PPR rates for patients with pneumonia, but not with cardiovascular conditions. More evidence-based process quality metrics closely linked to 30-day PPR rates, particularly for cardiovascular conditions, need to be developed to serve as a guideline to reduce potentially preventable readmissions.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.213-231
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• 2021

Due to the absence of rehabilitation sports service systems linked to post-discharge medical measures and rehabilitation, disabled people cannot participate in physical activities suitable for individual disability types, characteristics, and physical functions. In December 2017, the Act on the Rights of Health for the Disabled) was implemented to provide an institutional basis for disable people to address their needs for rehabilitation sports. Based on related studies conducted in Korea, this study aims to collect the results of a demand survey conducted on experts who are rehabilitation sports service providers and analyze the demand for rehabilitation sports services from a policy perspective. This study extracts the needs of experts presented in the literature and presents the extracted content as an inductive content analysis. The criteria for selecting the literature were selected based on studies related to "adaptive physical activity and exercise," "sports for all for the disabled," and "rehabilitation sports" conducted in the Republic of Korea, including the results of a demand survey on experts. The study results were categorized into seven categories (perception of sports activities, programs, leaders, facilities, accessibility, cost/support/financial resources, and others) of field experts who are rehabilitation sports service providers. In a future study, it will be necessary for people with disability, who are consumers who will provide actual services, to identify problems at the disabled sports site and come up with measures to improve them.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-3
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• 2024

Currently, the issue of poor accessibility to essential medical services has been brought to light as a social discontent. In order to strengthen the essential medical service system, the government has announced the "the policy package related to essential medical service" as a comprehensive solution and has vowed to invest more than 10 trillion won by 2028. As it contains crucial elements for changing the framework of the healthcare system, I would like to present several points to consider in policy implementation. Given that this package contains important elements for changing the framework of the healthcare system, there are a few issues to consider in policy implementation. First, a mechanism to prevent politicization should be established when designing the physician training system. Second, changing from a hospital centered on residents to one centered on specialists means that the society bears the cost of training residents, while paying a high price for specialist services. The willingness of society to pay for the costs incurred by such a change should be carefully considered, and an appropriate budget must be prepared. Third, as the operation of shared human resources and inter-organizational networking, among other detailed policy measures, are still at a level of conceptual discussion, various issues should be solidly reviewed and considered for in the mid to long term to suit the conditions of the domestic healthcare system.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.190-198
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• 2009

Objectives : The objective of this study is to estimate the economic costs of cancer on society. Methods : We estimated the economic burden of people with cancer in South Korea. To perform the analysis, we reviewed the records of people who were cancer patients and those who were newly diagnosed with cancer. The data was compiled from the National Health Insurance Corporation, which included the insurance claims database, a list of cancer patients, a database that records the cancer rates, the Korea Central Cancer Registry Center s cancer patient registry database and the Korea National Statistical Office s causes of death database. We classified the costs as related to cancer into direct costs and indirect costs, and we estimated each cost. Direct costs included both medical and non-medical care expenses and the indirect costs consisted of morbidity, mortality and the caregiver's time costs. Results : The total economic costs of cancer in South Korea stood at 14.1 trillion won in 2005. The largest amount of the cost 7.4 trillion won, was the mortality costs. Following this were the morbidity costs (3.2 trillion won), the medical care costs (2.2 trillion won), the non-medical care costs (1.1 trillion won) and the costs related to the caregiver's time (100 billion won). As a result, the economic cost of cancer to South Korea is estimated to be between 11.6 trillion won to 14.1 trillion won for the year 2005. Conclusions : We need to reduce the cancer burden through encouraging people to undergo early screening for cancer and curing it in the early stage of cancer, as well as implementing policies to actively prevent cancer.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.76-93
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• 2020

Purpose: In this study, the general characteristics of subjects who spent more than a certain amount of cost for general medical examination at the general hospital health promotion center, and the characteristics of disease, family history, and lifestyle (smoking, alcohol, physical activity, oral care) significantly differed in cost expenditure. We intend to provide basic data for establishing an appropriate marketing strategy for comprehensive examination. Method: It was conducted for users who received comprehensive checkups at a health promotion center at a general hospital in Seoul. The research data collection period is for 979 people who performed comprehensive examinations from January 2019 to December 2020. In order to carry out a comprehensive examination, a questionnaire before the examination was distributed to the subjects who visited the hospital to prepare, and the investigation was conducted in a way that the subjects of the investigation directly filled in. Results: There was a significant influence on the difference in expenditure for comprehensive examination according to the gender, age, and type of health insurance of the subject. In addition, there were significant differences in expenditure according to the presence or absence of disease and the type of family history. Weight loss, smoking history, smoking period, smoking frequency, drinking history, and drinking frequency all had significant effects on cost expenditure. Also, strength training and oral treatment management showed a significant effect on the cost of comprehensive examination. The number of flossing and interdental brushing was also found to have a significant effect. According to the results of multiple regression analysis, disease history (t=2.683, p<.01) and mean smoking frequency (t=4.315, p<.001) appeared to have the most significant effect on expenditure statistically. In other words, when the subject has a history of disease and when the average number of smoking is large, it means that the comprehensive examination cost is remarkably large. Conclusion: By using these contents, hospitals can further refine the marketing of the examination center. In addition, a more convenient and specialized process should be used by patients by linking the general medical department and the examination center well. In terms of management of operating medical institutions, this can be expected to create patients and increase profits.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.85-95
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to develope a critical pathway for the chemotherapy of non-small cell lung cancer patients and to identify its effects after implementation. Critical pathway was developed through 5 steps including content and clinical validity tests with collaborative efforts of nurses, clinicians, and other allied healthcare professionals with the aim of improving the quality of patient care, while minimizing cost to the patients. This paper was described an evaluation of the impact of a developed critical pathway on complication rate, length of stay, costs, the interval of treatment and patient satisfaction by nonequivalent control group posttest-only non-synchronized research design.Results were compared between the two groups of patients. There were no significant differences in demographic variables and the occurrence of bone marrow suppression between experimental group and control group(t=-0.01, p=0.992). There were statistically significant decreases in the average length of stay(t=-10.45, p=0.000), in the average cost(t=-2.988, p=0.004), and in the interval of treatment(t=-6.75, p=0.000) after implementation of the critical pathway compared to control group. Also, there was a statistically significant improvement of the patient satisfaction after implementation of the critical pathway compared to control group(t=4.57, p=0.000). This paper concludes that critical pathway in chemotherapy for lung cancer, implemented in the context of an general hospital, is the useful tool to shorten the hospital stay, reduce treatment costs, and improve the quality of life in cancer patients. Further study needs to be conducted to identify other clinical outcomes including job satisfaction, collaboration among health professionals and potential for use in education. Also, it is recommended that nurses should revise continuously the developed critical pathway through clinical implementation and maintain their role of patient advocacy through monitoring pathway compliance.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.3-8
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• 2016

We propose a modified form of the decision-directed least mean square (DD LMS) algorithm that is widely used in the optimization of self-adaptive equalizers, and show the modified version greatly improves the initial convergence properties of the conventional algorithm. Existing DD LMS regards the difference between a equalizer output and a quantization value for it as an error, and achieves an optimization of the equalizer based on minimizing the mean squared error cost function for the equalizer coefficients. This error generating method is useful for binary signal or a single-level signals, however, in the case of multi-level signals, it is not effective in the initialization of the equalizer. The modified DD LMS solves this problem by modifying the error generation. We verified the usefulness and performance of the modified DD LMS through experiments with multi-level signals under distortions due to intersymbol interference and additive noise.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.107-114
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• 2016

Background: Over the last few decades, because hospitals in South Korea also have undergone dramatic changes, Korean hospitals traditionally have provided specialized health care services in the health care market. Inner Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (IHI) measures hospital caseloads based on patient proportions, independent of patient volumes. However, IHI that rely solely on patient proportions might be problematic for larger hospitals that provide a high number of diagnosis categories, as the patient proportions in each category are naturally relatively smaller in such hospitals. Therefore, recently developed novel measure, category medical specialization (CMS) is based on patient volumes as well as patient proportions. Methods: We examine the distribution of hospital specialization score by hospital size and investigate association between each hospital specialization and length of stay per case and hospital cost per case using Korean National Health Insurance Service-cohort sample data from 2002 to 2013. Results: Our results show that IHI show a decreasing trend according to the number of beds and hospital type but CMS show an increasing trend according to the number of beds and hospital type. Further, inpatients admitted at hospitals with higher IHI and CMS had a shorter length of stay per case (IHI: B=-0.104, p<0.0001; CMS: B=-0.044, p=0.001) and inpatients admitted at hospitals with higher IHI and CMS had a shorter hospital cost per case (IHI: B=-0.110, p=0.002; CMS: B=-0.118, p=<0.0001). Conclusion: This study may help hospital policymakers and hospital administrators to understand the effects of hospital specialization strategy on hospital performance under recent changes in the Korean health care environment.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2018

Polypharmacy is increasing owing to an increase in the elderly population and multimorbidities associated with the increased risk of administration of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). The negative effects of polypharmacy on various health conditions and aspects, such as fall, fracture, mortality, cognitive function, and dementia, have been reported. The management of excess and inappropriate polypharmacy through proper interventions and local or national guidelines has been highlighted. The purpose of polypharmacy management is to appropriately prescribe medicines that are essential to treat diseases in patients and to avoid inappropriate polypharmacy, such as interactive or duplicate medicines under prescription and PIMs for specific diseases. Community pharmacists in Australia, the EU, USA, and Japan are collaborating with prescribers to review medications to ensure that the patients can be prescribed appropriate medications. The service cost is reimbursed by public or private insurers. A study in the United States has shown that even with medication review costs, the overall medication cost has reduced. In Korea, various projects such as Drug Utilization Review service and safe use of medicines have been conducted; however, no national guidelines or management measures have been established. It is necessary to implement a national long-term plan on polypharmacy management. Furthermore, a phased implementation plan is required. Shortly, active medication review services and education programs for healthcare professionals with the support of the government should be considered in Korea with reference to other countries in order to raise awareness of seriousness and risks of inappropriate polypharmacy.