• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.17-34
• /
• 2011

Recently, medical market has been changing not for the sake of treatment of the disease but for high quality of health. Therefore, South Korea medical tourism service needs to understand and improve for the differences perceptions of medical tourists and health professionals for customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to understand the structure of medical tourism market through theoretical consideration and to suggest the factors which need to be taken precedence for improvement of South Korea medical tourism service through analysis differences between consumers and suppliers. To analyze the difference of awareness, we reconstructed the questionnaires focussing on evaluation factors and articles about medical tourists selection attributes and health professionals way to invigoration through previous research and precedence study. After that, we also collected the data based on reconstructed questionnaires. After we compared each collected responses from medical tourists and health professionals, also analyzed the differences of awareness by applying Johari's Window to those differences. In conclusion, there is no relation between medical tourist and health professionals about th differences of awareness in functional quality and cost that is a direct effect to transaction in current medical tourism of South Korea. In contrast, there are differences of awareness between a process which support medical tourism and technical quality. Therefor, we expect to invigorate medical tourism by innovation of supportive process and technical quality.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.60-66
• /
• 2008

Background: Communication training in nursing college students is an integral part of the development of their competency in dealing with patients. However, the traditional lecture style of training delivery may not be desirably effective. Purpose: This study investigated the effects of a communication training program utilizing a small group dynamic on the communication competency and human relationships in nursing college students. Methods: One hundred twenty six freshmen in a university in Seoul participated in this study. The instruments of communication competency (Primary Communication Inventory) and human relationships (Relationship Change Scale) were used at the beginning and conclusion of the training period. Eighty-three students from two nursing classes were assigned to the experimental groups and 43 students from other classes were assigned to the control groups. Each of the 11 small groups was composed of 7 or 8 students. The weekly program that ran during the 2007 fall semester from October 1st to December 11th consisted of effective communication strategies including therapeutic communication skills, Johari's window, empathy, active listening, and transactional analysis. Results: The experimental group of students reported significantly greater improvement in communication competencies, specific nonverbal competencies, and human relationships compared with the control group. Specifically, the experimental students demonstrated greater improvement in nonverbal communication competencies and satisfaction, communication, and awareness of human relationships. Conclusions: Small group based communication training can be an effective alternative method of communication education for college nursing students.