• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.185-196
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• 2017

Backgrounds: Inpatient Classification System for Korean Medicine (KDRG-KM) was developed and has been applied for monitoring the costs of KM hospitals. Yet severity of patients' condition is not applied in the KDRG-KM. Objectives: This study aimed to develop the severity classification methods for KDRG-KM and assessed the explanation powers of severity adjusted KDRG-KM. Methods: Clinical experts panel was organized based on the recommendations from 12 clinical societies of Korean Medicine. Two expert panel workshops were held to develop the severity classification options, and the Delphi survey was performed to measure CCL(Complexity and Comorbidity Level) scores. Explanation powers were calculated using the inpatient EDI claim data issued by hospitals and clinics in 2012. Results: Two options for severity classification were deduced based on the severity classification principle in the domestic and foreign DRG systems. The option one is to classify severity groups using CCL and PCCL(Patient Clinical Complexity Level) scores, and the option two is to form a severity group with patients who belonged principal diagnosis-secondary diagnosis combinations which prolonged length of stay. All two options enhanced explanation powers less than 1%. For third option, patients who received certain treatments for severe conditions were grouped into severity group. The treatment expense of the severity group was significantly higher than that of other patients groups. Conclusions: Applying the severity classifications using principal diagnosis and secondary diagnoses can advance the KDRG-KM for genuine KM hospitalization. More practically, including patients with procedures for severe conditions in a severity group needs to be considered.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.112-122
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• 2016

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the validity of 'Korean Diagnosis Related Groups-Korean Medicine (KDRG-KM)' which was developed by Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA) in 2013 Methods: Among inpatient EDI claim data issued by hospitals and clinics in 2012, the data which included Korean medicine procedures were selected and analyzed. We selected control targets in the Korean medicine hospitals which had longer Episodes-Costliness index (ECI) and Lengthiness index (LI) than average of total Korean medicine hospitals, and compared the results of selection between the major diagnosis-based patient classification system and the KDRG-KM system. Finally, the explanation power (R2) and coefficient of variation (CV) of the KDRG-KM system using practice expenses were calculated. Results: The numbers of control target in Korean medicine hospitals changed from 36 to 32 when patient grouping adjustment method was changed from major diagnosis to KDRG-KM. For expenses of all outpatient claim data on Korean medicine, explanation power of KDRG-KM system was 66.48% after excluding outliers. CVs of expenses of patient groups in Korean medicine hospitals were gathered from under 70% to under 90%, and those in long-term care hospitals mostly belonged under 70%. Conclusions: The validity of KDRG-KM system was assured in terms of explanation power. By adapting KDRG-KM system, fairness of control targets selection for costliness management in Korean medicine hospitals can be enhanced.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.151-165
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• 1997

A cost analysis for hospitalized patients was performed based on the KDRG classification in order to determine an appropriate nursing fee under the PPS(Prospective Payment System). The data was collected from 20 nursing units of three tertiary hospitals and two secondary hospitals from August 26 to September 15, 1996. The study consisted of 148 inpatients diagnosed for lens procedures(KDRG 03900), tonsillectomy &/or adenoidectomy(KDRG 16100), Cesarean section(KDRG 37000), or vaginal delivery(KDRG 37300) without any complications. The direct or indirect nursing hours of each patients were measured. Then, direct or indirect nursing expenditures of four nursing units, operating room and delivery room were computed. Finally, the resources used including average total nursing hours, average length of stay and average nursing cost of each KDRG were estimated as follows; 1) The average total nursing hours were 640 minutes for lens procedures, 403 minutes for tonsillectomy &/or adenoidectomy, 934 minutes for appendectomy with complicated principal diagnosis, 1,094 minutes for Cesarean section and 631 minutes for vaginal delivery. Significant differences were found in average total nursing hours among hospitals. 2) The average length of stay in lens procedures were 5 days, 4 days for tonsillectomy &/or adenoidectomy, 6 days for appendectomy with complicated principal diagnosis, 8 days for Cesarean section and 3 days for vaginal delivery. All results were within normal determined by the Ministry of Health and Welfare although significant differences existed among hospitals, especially with average length of stay for leng procedures between tertiary hospitals and secondary hospitals which was greater than for those of others. 3) The average nursing cost were 87,146 Won for lens procedures, 69,600 Won for tonsillectomy &/or adenoidectomy, 128,337 Won for appendectomy with complicated principal diagnosis, 151,769 Won for Cesarean section and 85,403 Won for vaginal delivery. These costs were 7.6%, 13.0%, 13.0%, 16.0% and 22.0%, respectively, of the official price fixed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare under the prospective payment system. Research for the analysis of nursing costs according to the severity of illness for those KDRGs shoud be carried out within the period of the PPS pilot project. In addition, a proper nursing fee schedule for a new reimbursement system based upon the result of the above research should be prepared in the near future.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.98-115
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• 2003

Concerns about growing health insurance expenditures became a national Issue in 2001 when the National Health Insurance went into a deficit. Increases in spending for ambulatory care shared the largest portion of the problem. Methods and systems to control the spending should be developed and a system to measure case mix of providers is one of core components of the control system. The objectives of this article is to examine the feasibility of applying Korean Diagnosis Related Groups (KDRGs) to classify health insurance claims for ambulatory care and to identify problem areas of the classification. A database of 11,586,270 claims for ambulatory care delivered during January 2002 was obtained for the study, and the final number of claims analyzed was 8,319,494 after KDRG numbers were assigned to the data and records with an error KDRG were excluded from the study. The unit of analysis was a claim and resource use was measured by the sum of charges incurred during a month at a department of a hospital of at a clinic. Within group variance was assessed by th coefficient of variation (CV), and the classification accuracy was evaluated by the variance reduction achieved by the KDRG classification. The analyses were performed on both all and non-outlier data, and on a subset of the database to examine the validity of study results. Data were assigned to 787 KDRGs among 1,244 KDRGs defined in the classification system. For non-outlier data, 77.4％ of KDRGs had a CV of charges from tertiary care hospitals less than 100％ and 95.43％ of KDRGs for data from clinics. The variance reduction achieved by the KDRG classification was 40.80％ for non-outlier claims from tertiary care hospitals, 51.98％ for general hospitals, 40.89% for hospitals, and 54.99% for clinics. Similar results were obtained from the analyses performed on a subset of the study database. The study results indicated that KDRGs developed for a classification of inpatient care could be used for ambulatory care, although there were areas where the classification should be refined. Its power to predict tile resource utilization showed a potential for its application to measure case mix of providers for monitoring and managing delivery of ambulatory care. The issue concerning the quality of diagnostic information contained in insurance claims remains to be improved, and significance of future studies for other classification systems based on visits or episodes is guaranteed.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.44-51
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• 2013

Background: This study designed to evaluate the homogeneity of Korean diagnosis related group (KDRG) version 3.4 classification system. Methods: The total 5,921,873 claims data submitted to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service during 2010 were used. Both coefficient of variation (CV) and reduction in variance of cost were measured for evaluation. This analysis was divided into before and after trimming outliers at the level of adjacent DRG (ADRG), aged ADRG (AADRG) split by age, and DRG split by complication and comorbidity. Results: At the each three level of ADRG, AADRG, and DRG, there were 38.9%, 38.7%, and 30.0% of which had a CV > 100% in the untrimmed data and there were 1.4%, 1.4%, and 1.9% in the trimmed one. Before trimming outliers, ADRGs explained 52.5% of the variability in resource use, AADRGs did 53.1% and DRGs did 57.1%. The additional explanatory power by age and comorbidity and complication (CC) split were 0.6%p and 4.6%p for each, which were statistically significant. After trimming outliers, ADRGs explained 75.2% of the variability in resource use, AADRGs did 75.6%, and DRGs did 77.1%. The additional explanatory power were 0.4%p and 2.0%p for each, which were statistically significant too. Conclusion: The results demonstrated that KDRG showed high homogeneity within groups and performance after trimming outliers. But there were DRGs CV > 100% after age or CC split and the most contributing factor to high performance of KDRG was the ADRG rather than age or CC split. Therefore, it is recommended that the efforts for improving clinical homogeneity of KDRG such as review of the hierarchical structure of classification systems and classification variables.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.547-561
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• 1999

The purpose of this study was to determine which nursing activities are performed for patients in each of the nine KDRGs and to examine common nursing activities between patients with the nine KDRGs and special nursing activities which were not common to patients with the nine KDRGs. The study will provide basic data for estimation of nursing fees. The nine KDRGs in model project are Lens procedures, tonsillectomy, &/or adenoidectomy, appendectomy &/or not complicate principal diagnosis, vaginal delivery, cesarean section, anal & stomal procedures, inguinal & femoral hernia, uterine & adneza procedure for nonmalignancy, and simple pneumonia & pleurisy. To determine the nursing activities for each of the nine KDRG, checklists of nursing activities in each nine KDRG were developed from the literature and a total of 115 records of patients 'who were diagnosed and discharged between January and April, 1999 from a tertiary medical center. Nursing activities for each of the nine KDRG were verified through two consecutive content analyses. The results of study are followed as: 1. The checklists of nursing activities developed included direct and indirect nursing activities, for a total of 241 nursing activities. Direct nursing consisted of physical, educational, emotional-socioecomomic-spiritual nursing in 17 areas. Indirect nursing had four areas. 2. Through the two consecutive content analyses, 197 nursing activities were selected, having item CVIs of .83 or more. Those included 81 nursing activities for Lens procedures, 95 for Tonsillectomy &/or Adenoidectomy. 93 in Appendectomy &/or not complicated principal diagnosis, 155 for vaginal delivery, 172 for cesarean section, 89 for anal & stomal procedures, 93 for inguinal & femoral hernia, 108 for uterine & adneza procedures for non-malignancy, and 68 for simple pneumonia & pleurisy. 3. Nursing activities for each of the nine KDRG were compared. Activities with 80% or higher commonality within the nine KDRGs consisted of 86 of 197 nursing activities for the total designated common nursing activities, 30 common nursing activities for patients in the operation group, 45 common activities for patients in the delivery Group. Special nursing activities not common within the nine KDRGs were : 3 for Lens procedures, 1 for Tonsillectomy &/or Adenoidectomy. 2 for Appendectomy &/or not complicated principal diagnosis, 27 for vaginal delivery, 21 for Cesarean section, 6 for anal & stomal procedures, 3 for inguinal & femoral hernia, 16 for uterine & adneza procedure for non-malignancy, 8 for simple pneumonia & pleurisy. In this study, nursing activities for each of the nine KDRGs verified through two consecutive content analyses are those that are performed in the hospital. And, nursing activities for each of the nine KDRGs included all nursing activities from hospital admission to discharge. So. the checklists consisted of nursing activities that allow for an estimation of nursing fees under PPS. The classification of nursing activities in the study will provide a reference for the development of a nursing activity classification.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.121-147
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• 2004

Since the pilot program for a DRG-based prospective payment system was introduced in 1997, the performance of KDRGs has been one of hotly debated issues. The objectives of this study are to refine the classification algorithm of the KDRGs and to assess the improvement achieved by the refinement. The U.S. Medicare DRGs version 17.0 and the Australian Refined DRGs version 4.1 were reviewed to identify areas of possible impro-vement. Refined changes in the classification and result of date analyses were submitted to a panel of 48 physicians for their reviews and suggestions. The refinement was evaluated by the variance reduction in resource utilization achieved by the KDRG The database of 2,182,168 claims submitted to the Health Insurance Review Agency during 2002 was used for evaluation. As the result of the refinement, three new MDCs were introduced and the number of ADEGs increased from 332 to 674. Various age splits and two to four levels of severity classification for secondary diagnoses were introduced as well. A total of 1,817 groups were defined in the refined KDRGs. The variance reduction for charges of all patients increased from 48.2％ to 53.6％ by the refinement, and from 65.6％ to 73.1％ for non-outlier patients. The r-square for length of stays of all patients was increased from 28.3％ to 32.6％, and from 40.4％ to 44.9％ for non-outlier patients. These results indicated a significant improvement in the classification accuracy of the KDRG system.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.229-246
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• 1998

This dissertation classifies sample patients by a measure of K-DRG to identify the most frequent group. and investigates the differences in the dependency of nursing by patient classification system in the SICU of Seoul National University Hospital in Korea. It also calculates the mean nursing care hours and costs per craniotomy patient, who is shown to be the most frequent patient group. The results of the research can be used as basic data for the development of relevant nursing cost system in the future. The results of the research are as follows: 1. Using data from 97 sample patients, as many as 26 groups are identified when the patients are classified by K-DRG. KDRG-001 (craniotomy) is found to be the most frequent group(43.30%). 2. The result from patient classification system grouping in craniotomy patients shows homogeneity in terms of dependency of nursing with 35 patients in the 4th group, 145 patients(74.36%) are in the 5th group. and 15 patients are in the 6th group among the total 195 sample patients. 3. The direct nursing care hours for the 4th, 5th, and 6th patient classification system groups are found to be 381 minuites. 483 minuites, and 519 minuites, respectively, which shows that the nursing care hours increases as the dependency of nursing is intensified. The indirect nursing care hours are found to be 454 minuites(7.57 hours). The total mean nursing care hours, which is the sum of the direct nursing care hours(467 min.: 7.78 hours) and the indirect nursing care hours (454 min.: 7.57 hours), is 921 minuites(15.35 hours) per patient a day. 4. The nursing care cost is calculated to be 123,297 won per patient a day. Considering the average duration in the ICU, we can find the total nursing care cost is 610,318 won.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.407-420
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• 2007

Purpose: The objective of this literature review study was to identify research's trends and methodological issues of cost analysis on nursing services. Methods: Researches which analyzed nursing services cost, were selected from journal articles and master or doctoral dissertation studies. The total numbers of the collected studies were 23. Results: The number of studies on nursing services cost has been increased rapidly since middle-1990. The 5 methodological frameworks to classify the cost analysis researches was found. 4 researches were using the traditional costing method. 6 researches were using the clinical patient classification systems. 4 researches were using the Korean Diagnosis Related Group (KDRG). 5 researches were using the Resource Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS). 4 researches were using the Activity Based Costing (ABC). Conclusion: These results will be used to provide the basic data for developing a more refined cost analysis method on nursing services. For further studies, we will suggest that the consent criteria of cost items need to measure nursing services be developed and the conducting cost analysis on nursing services be networked a hospital's cost management system.