• Korean Circulation Journal
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.351-366
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• 2023

Along with the development of immunosuppressive drugs, major advances on xenotransplantation were achieved by understanding the immunobiology of xenograft rejection. Most importantly, three predominant carbohydrate antigens on porcine endothelial cells were key elements provoking hyperacute rejection: α1,3-galactose, SDa blood group antigen, and N-glycolylneuraminic acid. Preformed antibodies binding to the porcine major xenoantigen causes complement activation and endothelial cell activation, leading to xenograft injury and intravascular thrombosis. Recent advances in genetic engineering enabled knock-outs of these major xenoantigens, thus producing xenografts with less hyperacute rejection rates. Another milestone in the history of xenotransplantation was the development of co-stimulation blockaded strategy. Unlike allotransplantation, xenotransplantation requires blockade of CD40-CD40L pathway to prevent T-cell dependent B-cell activation and antibody production. In 2010s, advanced genetic engineering of xenograft by inducing the expression of multiple human transgenes became available. So-called 'multi-gene' xenografts expressing human transgenes such as thrombomodulin and endothelial protein C receptor were introduced, which resulted in the reduction of thrombotic events and improvement of xenograft survival. Still, there are many limitations to clinical translation of cardiac xenotransplantation. Along with technical challenges, zoonotic infection and physiological discordances are major obstacles. Social barriers including healthcare costs also need to be addressed. Although there are several remaining obstacles to overcome, xenotransplantation would surely become the novel option for millions of patients with end-stage heart failure who have limited options to traditional therapeutics.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.26-34
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• 2024

Objectives: The successful implementation of the Port Safety Special Act is a very important matter. Now that one year has passed since its introduction, this study aims to review the achievements so far and identify future tasks. Methods: The provisions of the Special Act on Port Safety were analyzed and the latest literature related to port safety management was reviewed. In addition, an in-depth interview was conducted with a business owner. Results: The achievements over the past year are as follows. As business operators took greater responsibility for safety management, blind spots in safety were resolved to an extent. Specialized training for the port unloading industry was provided, and a safety management system was established for unloading docks. In addition, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries was able to intervene in the prevention of safety accidents at ports through the deployment of port safety inspectors. In 2022, the port industry accident frequency and death rate declined compared to the previous year. Conclusions: The "Port Safety Special Act" has become relatively well established in the port industry over the past year. However, since the Serious Disaster Punishment Act was implemented in January of the same year, there is a limit on determining what is necessarily the effect of the Special Act. Future tasks include unifying contracts centered on cargo handling companies, supporting safety management costs, increasing the number of port safety inspectors, producing reliable port disaster statistics, and cooperating between the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.96-107
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• 2024

Objectives: While several food assistance programs in the United States tackle food insecurity, a relatively new program, "Food is Medicine," (FIM) initiated in some cities not only addresses food insecurity but also targets chronic diseases by customizing the food delivered to its recipients. This review describes federal programs providing food assistance and evaluates the various sub-programs categorized under the FIM initiative. Methods: A literature search was conducted from July 7, 2023 to November 9, 2023 using the search term, "Food is Medicine", to identify articles indexed within three major electronic databases, PubMed, Medline, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL). Eligibility criteria for inclusion were: focus on any aspect of the FIM initiative within the United States, and publication as a peer-reviewed journal article in the English language. A total of 180 articles were retrieved; publications outside the eligibility criteria and duplicates were excluded for a final list of 72 publications. Supporting publications related to food insecurity, governmental and organizational websites related to FIM and other programs discussed in this review were also included. Results: The FIM program includes medically tailored meals, medically tailored groceries, and produce prescriptions. Data suggest that it has lowered food insecurity, promoted better management of health, improved health outcomes, and has, therefore, lowered healthcare costs. Conclusions: Overall, this umbrella program is having a positive impact on communities that have been offered and participate in this program. Limitations and challenges that need to be overcome to ensure its success are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Academic Society of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.77-88
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• 2024

Purpose: This study aimed to develop and assess the impact of an integrated infection control education program on the awareness, attitudes, and performance of infection control among caregivers in long-term care facilities. Methods: Participants were recruited from two long-term care facilities with 25 caregivers in both the experimental group and the control group. This study used non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental pre-post design. The effectiveness of a developed Integrated Infection Control Education Program was evaluated based on infection control awareness, attitudes, and performance. Data were analyzed using SPSS/WIN 28.0 through descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, Fisher's exact tests, and independent t-tests. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in the degree of awareness (t=-5.00, p<.001), attitude (t=-4.91, p<.001), and performance (t=-6.66, p<.001) of infection control between the two groups. Conclusion: Given these results, the integrated infection control education program significantly improved infection control awareness, attitudes, and performance among caregivers in long-term care facilities. This study is noteworthy because it provided comprehensive education on infection control practices to caregivers in environments that are particularly susceptible to infections, especially following COVID-19. This educational program is actively utilized and validated in practice, it would enhance the infection control performance of caregivers, thereby reducing infection rates within facilities, shortening the length of stay for elderly residents in long term care facilities, and contributing to the reduction of healthcare costs.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.43-54
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• 2024

Recently, there has been a lot of research on utilizing Language Models, and Large Language Models have achieved innovative results in various tasks. However, the practical application faces limitations due to the constrained resources and costs required to utilize Large Language Models. Consequently, there has been recent attention towards methods to effectively utilize models within given resources. Curriculum Learning, a methodology that categorizes training data according to difficulty and learns sequentially, has been attracting attention, but it has the limitation that the method of measuring difficulty is complex or not universal. Therefore, in this study, we propose a methodology based on data heterogeneity-based Curriculum Learning that measures the difficulty of data using reliable prior information and facilitates easy utilization across various tasks. To evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology, experiments were conducted using 5,000 specialized documents in the field of information communication technology and 4,917 documents in the field of healthcare. The results confirm that the proposed methodology outperforms traditional fine-tuning in terms of classification accuracy in both LoRA fine-tuning and full fine-tuning.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.273-275
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• 2017

It has been forty years since the implementation of National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Korea. Following the 1977 legislature mandating medical insurance for employees and dependents in firms with more than 500 employees, South Korea expanded its health insurance to urban residents in 1989. Resultantly, total expenses of the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) have greatly increased from 4.5 billion won in 1977 to 50.89 trillion won in 2016. With multiple insurers merging into the NHI system in 2000, a single-payer healthcare system emerged, along with separation policy of prescribing and dispensing. Following such reform, an emerging financial crisis required injections from the National Health Promotion Fund. Forty years following the introduction of the NHI system, both praise and criticism have been drawn. In just 12 years, the NHI achieved the fastest health population coverage in the world. Current medical expenditure is not high relative to the rest of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The quality of acute care in Korea is one of the best in the world. There is no sign of delayed diagnosis and/or treatment for most diseases. However, the NHI has been under-insured, requiring high-levels of out-of-pocket money from patients and often causing catastrophic medical expenses. Furthermore, the current environmental circumstances of the NHI are threatening its sustainability. Low birth rate decline, as well as slow economic growth, will make sustainment of the current healthcare system difficult in the near future. An aging population will increase the amount of medical expenditure required, especially with the baby-boomer generation of those born between 1955 and 1965. Meanwhile, there is always the problem of unification for the Korean Peninsula, and what role the health insurance system will have to play when it occurs. In the presidential election, health insurance is a main issue; however, there is greater focus on expansion and expenditure than revenue. Many aspects of Korea's NHI system (1977) were modeled after the German (1883) and Japanese (1922) systems. Such systems were created during an era where infections disease control was most urgent and thus, in the current non-communicable disease (NCD) era, must be redesigned. The Korean system, which is already forty years old, must be redesigned completely. Although health insurance benefit expansion is necessary, financial measures, as well as moral hazard control measures, must also be considered. Ultimately, there are three aspects that we must consider when attempting redesign of the system. First, the health security system must be reformed. NHI and Medical Aid must be amalgamated into one system for increased effectiveness and efficiency of the system. Within the single insurer system of the NHI must be an internal market for maximum efficiency. The NHIS must be separated into regions so that regional organizers have greater responsibility over their actions. Although insurance must continue to be imposed nationally, risk-adjustment must be distributed regionally and assessed by different regional systems. Second, as a solution for the decreasing flow of insurance revenue, low premium level must be increased to an appropriate level. Likewise, the national reserve fund (No. 36, National Health Insurance Act) must be enlarged for re-unification preparation. Third, there must be revolutionary reform of benefit package. The current system built a focus on communicable diseases which is inappropriate in this NCD era. Medical benefits must not be one-time events but provide chronic disease management. Chronic care models, accountable care organization, patient-centered medical homes, and other systems that introduce various benefit packages for beneficiaries must be implemented. The reimbursement system of medical costs should be introduced to various systems for different types of care, as is the case with part C (Medicare Advantage Program) of America's Medicare system that substitutes part A and part B. Pay for performance must be expanded so that there is not only improvement in quality of care but also medical costs. Moreover, beneficiaries of the NHI system must be aware of the amount of their expenditure through a deductible payment system so that spending can be profiled and monitored. The Moon Jae-in Government has announced its plans to expand the NHI system; however, it is important that a discussion forum is created so that more accurate analysis of the NHI, its environments, and current status of health care system, can take place for reforming NHI.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.78-86
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• 2024

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the specialty hospital system by comparing the medical use of inpatients who had artificial joint replacement surgery in specialty hospitals and non-specialty hospitals. Methods: This study utilized 2021-2022 healthcare benefit claims data provided by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. The dependent variable is inpatient medical use which is measured in terms of charges per case and length of stay. The independent variable was whether the hospital was designated as a specialty hospital, and the control variables were patient-level variables (age, gender, insurer type, surgery type, and Charlson comorbidity index) and medical institution-level variables (establishment type, classification, location, number of orthopedic surgeons, and number of nurses). Results: The results of the multiple regression analysis between charges per case and whether a hospital is designated as a specialty hospital showed a statistically significant negative relationship between charges per case and whether a hospital is designated as a specialty hospital. This suggests a significant low in charges per case when a hospital is designated as a specialty hospital compared to a non-specialty hospital, indicating that there is a difference in medical use outcomes between specialty hospitals and non-specialty hospitals inpatients. Conclusion: The practical implications of this study are as follows. First, the criteria for designating specialty hospitals should be alleviated. In our study, the results show that specialty hospitals have significantly lower per-case costs than non-specialty hospitals. Despite the cost-effectiveness of specialty hospitals, the high barriers to be designated for specialty hospitals have gathered the specialty hospitals in metropolitan and major cities. To address the regional imbalance of specialty hospitals, it is believed that ease the criteria for designating specialty hospitals in non-metropolitan areas, such as introducing "semi-specialty hospitals (tentative name)," will lead to a reduction in health disparities between regions and reduce medical costs. Second, it is necessary to determine the appropriateness of the size of hospitals' medical staff. The study found that the number of orthopedic surgeons and nurses varied in charges per case. Therefore, it is believed that appropriately allocating hospital medical staff can maximize the cost-effectiveness of medical services and ultimately reduce medical costs.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.341-352
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• 2012

It is well established that excessive sodium intake is related to a higher incidence of chronic diseases such as hypertension, stroke, coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease and gastric cancer. Although the upper limit of the current sodium intake guideline by WHO is set at 2,000 mg/day for adults, sodium intake of Koreans is well over 4,700 mg/capita/day implying an urgent need to develop and implement sodium intake reduction policy at the national level. This study investigated the cost-effectiveness of the sodium intake reduction policy, for the first time, in Korea. Analyses were performed using most recent and representative data on national health insurance statistics, healthcare utilization, employment information, disease morbidity/mortality, etc. The socioeconomic benefits of the policy, resulting from reduced morbidity of those relevant diseases, included lower medical expenditures, transportation costs, caregiver cost for inpatients and income losses. The socioeconomic benefits from diminished mortality included reductions in earning losses and welfare losses caused by early deaths. It is estimated that the amount of total benefits of reducing sodium intake from 4.7 g to 3.0 g is 12.6 trillion Korean Won; and the size of its cost is 149 billion Won. Assuming that the effect of sodium intake reduction would become gradually evident over a 5-year period, the implied rate of average return to the sodium reduction policy is 7,790% for the following 25 years, suggesting a very high cost-effectiveness. Accordingly, development and implementation of a mid-to-long term plan for a consistent sodium intake reduction policy is extremely beneficial and well warranted.

• 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.

• 모자간호학회지
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.3-11
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• 1994

Presently there is an increasing demand for home health care services due to changes in the demographic structure as a result of an increasing elderly population, socio-economic improvements, and changes in the family structure, as well as the growing number of people with degenerative diseases. In addition to these reasons, rising medical costs and there a shortage of patient beds space in the hospital, particularly since introduction of national medical insurance. There has been an increasing demand for health care health care services. This study was done to identify the basic data for home health care management. It focused on developing client selection criteria, assessment tools, and recording methods. This was accomplished by the researchers visiting the patients in their homes. The research process included preparation investigation, tool development, training of the project researcher, and visiting the clients in their homes. The research tools are as follows : 1. Record development : a) The selection criteria tool for home health care of postpartum women was a structured tool and consisted of four parts. b) The structured assessment tool consisted of a general items, obstetric history, past medical history, methods of feeding, medications taken before admission, laboratory test results, discharge instructions, discharge medications, family tree, economic status, environmental status, a map, health assessment of postpartum women and their newborns. c) The visit note I consisted of the frequency of visits. Visit note II consisted of the date ; nursing problems ; nursing process including the initial assessment ; nursing goal ; visit plan ; postpartum women and their neonate health status, diagnosis, goal, implementation, evaluation, summary, next plan, for visit revision. d) Problem note consisted of the date, problem numbers, nursing diagnosis, problem appearance date problem resolution date. The research results are as follows : 1. Nursing problems : The nursing problems of the postpartum women and their neonates were evaluated by the number of nursing diagnoses and the change in the pattern of nursing diagnosis related to the number of visits. a) Nursing diagnosis The nursing diagnosis was classified according to physical function, psychosocial function, family system maintained function. b) The changes of nursing diagnosis related to the number of visits. As the type of nursing diagnosis changed related to the number of visits the number of nursing diagnoses decreased. 2. Contents of home health care : The content was categorized according to assessment, direct care, counseling, education, family care, reporting to with the attending doctor. The recommendations based on the research results are as follows : 1. Tool development Replication of this study is needed to test the validity of the assessment tools used. 2. Home visit a) Home health care nurses should be licensed and qualified. A referral form from the attending doctor is needed for legal protection of nurses. b) The first home visit need to be within 24 hours of discharge from the hospital to decrease the anxiety of frightened postpartum women. c) When the changes occur in the newborn's status, home health care nurses should consult a pediatrician. Communication within the home healthcare team is essential and needs to consistent and done smoothly. 3. Home health care A Study is required to develop protocols for education of staff and for operation of all aspects of this program.