• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.8-19
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• 2022

Objectives: Parkinson's disease (PD) patients experience various non-motor symptoms, among which constipation is the second most common after anosmia. However, there are no clear guidelines or effective treatment for constipation in PD. Methods: To investigate the efficacy of Majainhwan (MH) on constipation in patients with PD, we conducted a retrospective chart review study of PD or Parkinsonism patients with constipation who received outpatient or inpatient treatment and whose previous laxatives were replaced by MH from August 2016 to July 2019. Results: In this study, a total of 68 patients' medical records were reviewed. Among the 44 outpatients with MH treatment, "effective" results were observed in 86.4% patients. Similarly, among the 24 inpatients, "effective" results were noted in 95.8% patients. The adverse effect was "diarrhea" reported in five cases. Conclusion: Based on these findings, we could suggest that MH is relatively safe and may be effective in the treatment of constipation in patients with PD.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.63-74
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• 2009

Purpose : The current nationally representative data on inpatient care are important to make the of the national public health policy because distributions and the prevalence of diseases among children and adolescents represent the socioeconomic status of the society. The prevalence of chronic disease is increasing now in Korea as the socioeconomic condition is improving. We analyzed a part of genitourinary tract disease of the cross-sectional hospital discharge survey data in Korea collected recently to delineate the trend of genitourinary tract diseases. Methods : Korean nationwide hospital discharge survey for pediatric inpatients in the period from 2004 to 2006 was analyzed. Diagnoses in the data were coded using ICD-10 classification. Totally 826,896 cases were collected from the 85 training hospitals. Selected data of genitourinary tract diseases (belonging to N00-N99 by ICD-10) among 826,896 cases of final inpatients data were analyzed for this study. Results : Among total patients of 826,896, diseases of the genitourinary system accounted for 4.1%. and four diagnostic categories accounted for 92.8%. These were other diseases of the urinary system (N30-39), 45.8%, disease of male genital organs (N40-51),19.1%, glomerular diseases (N00-08), 17.3%, renal tubulo-interstitial diseases (N10-16), 10.6%, respectively. Conclusion : Genitourinary tract disease in pediatric inpatient shows decreasing tendency but the prevalence of chronic diseases is increasing in Korea as the socioeconomic condition is improving. For further comprehensive analysis, regular and organized nationwide survey should be performed. Development of a new data collecting system will improve the performance of such nationwide survey.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.622-628
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• 2007

Purpose : While pediatric observation units (POU) have become a common practice in hospitals throughout developed countries, there has been no report about POUs in Korea so far. The aims of this study were to analyze our one-year's experience of the POU and to decide which disease entities are suitable for the POU. Methods : All children admitted from March 2006 to February 2007 to the POU at the Department of Pediatrics in Our Lady of Mercy Hospital were included in this study. Data were collected from retrospective reviews of their medical records. Results : There were a total of 1,076 POU admissions. Median age of patients was 2.4 years and median length of hospital stay 14.0 hours. The most common diagnoses were gastroenteritis (42.7%), pharyngotonsillitis (19.1%), bronchiolitis (7.8%), pneumonia (5.5%) and febrile seizure (5.2%). Overall, 7.5% of the POU patients required subsequent inpatient admissions due to hospital stays of longer than 48 hours. The disease entities that were most likely to require inpatient admission were pneumonia (17.0%), febrile seizure (12.5%) and asthma (11.5%). Diseases that allowed successful discharge from the POU were gastroenteritis (4.6%), upper respiratory tract infection (5.8%), such as otitis media and pharygnotonsillitis and seizure disorder (6.4%). Compared with the previous year when the POU was not in operation, there was a statistically significant reduction in the average length of hospital stays (from 4.69 to 3.75 days), as well as a rise in the bed turnover rate (from 78.8 to 98.2 patients/bed). Conclusion : Our study shows that the POU is efficient for the management of children with certain acute illnesses. Based on this study, we suggest that the POU be used as a new modality which links between the outpatient, inpatient, and emergency departments in the field of pediatrics in Korea.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.242-259
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• 1997

This study describes associated factors of readmission of 213 inpatients from an university hospital in Seoul. This retrospective study reviewed medical records of patients who discharged from a hospital stay for general diseases between 1 August 1995 and 31 October 1995, Cases were 68 discharge patients with an unplanned readmission within 30 days of discharge from an index stay. And the other cases are 145 patients who had more than two discharges and didn't have an unplanned readmission within 30 days. Logistic regression model was analyzed and the results were as follows; 1. duration of readmission, rate of unpayed, room, path, and risk of disease were more likely to be readmitted unexpectedly than the expected readmission patients. 2. early readmission, low risk condition group, and inadquateness of discharge plann for patients had unplanned radmissions rather than planned readmissions. Therefore, discharge planning education to health care provider is required and assessement of discharge planning should be evaluated. Readmissions are usually for related problems that arose during the original hopitaliztion and caused cost problems. Especially the unplanned readmissions are frequently preventable. Ultimately, models for readmissions can serve as a valuable clinical tool for target high-risk patients and older patients and with this kind of tools we can reduce hospital readmissions and maintain high-quality of inpatient care.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.34-41
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• 2015

Objective: This study is to evaluate the awareness, needs, and barriers in patient counseling for hospitalized foreign patients. As the number of foreign population increases in Korea, demands on quality of Korean health services are rapidly increasing. Previously most of the studies have focused on the availability and utilization of healthcare service, and prevalence of disease for foreigners, however, no study has been conducted on quality of direct-patient care such as patient counseling. Method: In the present study, a survey was conducted on a total of 161 participants between March 7 and May 7 in 2014. The study subjects were consisted with 103 foreign patients who had experienced inpatient care within 1 year and 58 hospital pharmacists who work in the hospital with foreign inpatients. Results: Firstly, the hospital pharmacists were highly aware of the necessity of counseling for foreign inpatients. Secondly, the largest portion of barrier to patient counseling service was accounted a lack of foreign language skills. Lastly, the monitoring of efficacy, potential adverse reactions and discharge follow-up were emphasized. Conclusion: Effective communication skills would be essential to improve pharmaceutical care services to foreign inpatients.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.147-159
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• 2020

Objectives: This study is the human factors and disease factors of the copayment system for the elderly (>65 years old) and to identify does the current status and characteristics of the applied elderly and conducted to provide basic data. Methods: Sample cohort data from the National Health Insurance Corporation database, from the years 2012-2015, were analyzed of 21,772 elderly people over the copayment ceiling. Results: The ratio of those who exceeded the copayment ceiling system rose sharply from progressive rates of 3.39% in 2012, 3.69% in 2013 and 5.03% in 2014, to rates of 37.13% from 2013. Factors identified that affect the instances of being over the copayment ceiling were: age, income group, region, severity, disability, sickness distribution, inpatient days, and outpatient days. Conclusions: The reorganization of the copayment ceiling system in 2014 favored low-income families of the elderly, but in 2015, the proportion of elderly was low (only 5.78%). The government's policies needs to change to allow for the amount of the deductible upper limit for low- and middle- income groups to be further subdivided in order for the elderly to receive more deductibles.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.15-26
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• 2010

Stroke is a high-risk disease. The future of the medical environment is that the proportion of elderly population is increasing, the average life expectancy is being increased, while the fatal rate of stroke will be low. These situation will due to the financial burden on medical insurance. The most important factor that affects on the medical costs of stroke patients is the length of stay. In this study the mean length of hospital for stroke stay was 21.81days(37.97days for intracerebral hemorrhage, 18.89 days for cerebral infarction). The payment per case of stroke was 6.86 million won(12.6 million won for intracerebral hemorrhage, 5.72 million won for cerebral infarction). The payment per case of intracerebral hemorrhage was 2.2 times more than that of cerebral infarction. The payment in the day of hospitalization was the highest and until the second day medical costs was high. After the third day medical costs tended to decline, after that seemed to show an almost constant level. The length of hospital stay was found to be the most important determinant of inpatient charges for stroke. Accordingly rational management of the length of stay will be beneficial to health care consumers, providers, states.

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.73-81
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• 2007

1. Objectives This study was to investigate correlation between the diagnosis of Sasang Constitutional Medicine(SCM) and the differentiation of syndromes according to the state of Qi, Blood, Body Fluid, Phlegm retention and the five viscera in storke inpatients. 2. Methods Stroke inpatients were investigated through questionaire of differentiation of syndromes and QSCC2. The results were analyzed statistically by one-way ANOVA on SPSS 12. 3. Results and Conclusions 1) Soeumin had a high grade on Qi-insufficiency than other consititutions. 2) Soyangin had a low grade on Qi-insufficiency, spleen disease than other consititutions. 3) There were not significant results in the investigation item of the sweating, constipation, diarrhea, anorexia, abdominal pain among the constitutions.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.583-590
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• 2020

This study examined the perceptions of health literacy on inpatient and outpatient patients among nurses currently in the field. The study participants consist of ten nurses working for general hospitals in Seoul and Busan. The data was collected from focus group interviews and all interviews were recorded and transcribed. Data were analyzed by using the content analysis method. Nurses recognized that there was a difference in the patient's health literacy level according to the patient's age, education, income level, underlying disease, and emotional state. This study suggests implementing 1) education programs to increase nurses' awareness of the importance of health literacy, to make accurate assessments of patent level of health literacy and communicate with them accordingly, and 2) support system for patients with poor health literacy.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.97-104
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine factors that affect satisfaction of the hospital services among injured workers. Methods: The subjects of this study were 532 injured workers. The questionnaires were selected as literature suggested for explaining satisfaction of the hospital services, general characteristics of injured workers, characteristics of the hospital services. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, multiple regression analysis by SPSS 19.0. Results: There were significant differences in satisfaction scores, depending on the types of disease, health status and possibility to return to work among the injured workers. Also, there were significant differences in satisfaction scores, in terms of medical facilities, food service, specialization of doctors and nurses, cleanliness of hospital, convenience of hospital teaching and counselling of doctors and nurses, supporting workers' compensation process, counselling of workers' compensation and unfair treatment. In the results of the standard multiple regression analysis, food service, medical facilities, specialization of doctors and nurses, health status and hospital cleanliness were significant factors for satisfaction scores of the hospital services. Conclusion: It is necessary to promote food service, medical facilities, specialization of doctors and nurses, hospital cleanliness, health status of injured workers for developing hospital services.