• Health Policy and Management
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.185-206
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• 2008

The National Health Insurance (NHI) has been the main body of health care system in Korea for the last 30 years since the NHI was founded. However, the inefficient management and strong regulations of the NHI have hindered the development of health care industry. The establishment of the MB government, whose interest lies on economic growth rather than equity, is expected to help the health care services gain a momentum. The essential measures that can step up public health care services overall are the following: the introduction of competition within NHI, the activation of private health care insurance, and the allowance of for-profit hospital. The private-public mix with market mechanism would level up the health care service for the public.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.270-276
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• 2020

Entering the fourth industrial revolution era, health technology is rapidly developing and the people's needs for medical services are gradually increasing. Establishing a life cycle management of health technology has emerged as a new policy agenda to cope with these changes. However, the management of health technology have been conducted without continuity and with several problems pointed out. Therefore, we suggest the reform agendas by stages to establish system for a life cycle management of health technology in the fourth industrial revolution era as follows. In the stage of development, it is important not only to provide research funding, but also consulting by professional about whole cycle of health technologies. In the phase of market entry, there are needs for enhance the system that would expand the early adoption for innovative technology and increase its effectiveness. After the spread of health technology to clinical settings, a reassessment and post management system should be established that have an institutional framework with strong price adjustment and exit mechanism. Furthermore, we hope that discussions will be brisk in macro perspective on the balancing of development in healthcare industry, health of people and national health insurance finance.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.245-246
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• 2022

Concerns about a global economic recession are rising following the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Accordingly, government entities, which are committed to overcome two barriers to severe inflation and economic recession, are showing high interest in spending management so as not to undermine fiscal soundness. Since the health care sector especially accounts for a large proportion of fiscal expenditure, it should be managed in a manner that the expense is appropriately spent. The National Health Insurance System and Healthcare System have secured international competitiveness and reliability by effectively responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, considerable efforts should be made to reorganize the welfare and healthcare systems so that they can be sustainable during the post-COVID-19 era and the recession.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.247-257
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• 2022

The presidential election and the inauguration of the new government are a period of the policy window opening. The newly launched government is expected to improve the quality of life of the people. The Yoon Suk-yeol Government is also launched with new expectations with a transitional period in health care. The sustainability of health care in Korea is threatened. The environment of health care and the main policy issues of health care are difficult to secure the necessary finance for health care in spite of the increasing health care burden. Accordingly, the Yoon Suk-yeol Government's health care policy aims to provide intensive support to those in need of health and welfare and to improve the health of the people through investment in health. And for integrating fragmented health care and welfare services and creating people-centered community-based health care, a health care innovation center will be established for the evaluation platform of new delivery and payment systems, a health care development plan will be established for the blueprint of health care, and reorganizing the central & local government should be reviewed. Although we are facing unfavorable situations such as the distribution of the National Assembly, inflation, and the possibility of economic recession, we expect that announced health care policies will be implemented, recognizing that health care innovation is the only way to improve health care sustainability.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.43-62
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the causal relationship among health care criteria in Korean National Mental Hospitals, using Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award(MBNQA). The survey instrument consists of 92 Questions from the seven the MBNQA health care criteria. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to analyze the empirical data and estimates the path coefficients among the seven categories. The result of this study indicates that Leadership drives Foundation and Direction, which influence on Systems that creates Results. Conclusively, among 18 hypotheses, 15 are statistically significant.

• Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.181-182
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• 2022

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.241-243
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• 2021

With the increase in vaccinations worldwide, the world is facing the era of coexisting with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The government announced that it will change its focus of public health emergency response system, gradually toward daily recovery from November. Hence, this article reviews an overview of policy tasks to prepare for the era of coexistence with COVID-19. The three key policies that should be considered are as follow: (1) vaccination should be administered promptly to improve the immunity of the target population; (2) the government should advance the medical capability for critically ill patients and reorganize the patient delivery system; and (3) epidemiological surveillance system should be reformed in a direction to raise the social capacity.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.137-153
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• 2022

In the process of promoting policies to strengthen health insurance coverage, the relationship between public health insurance and private health insurance, along with the management of non-benefit, is also emphasized as a policy issue. First, the concept and scope of non-benefit were comparatively analyzed by country. Second, the interaction between the public and private health insurance was classified as 'large or small,' and the government's regulation and management policy on private health insurance was classified as 'strong or weak.' Korea has relatively smaller benefits covered by public health insurance, higher copayment expenses, and more areas and scope of non-benefits. In countries where the interaction between public and private health insurance is small, private health insurance-related policies are weak. And in countries with large interactions had public-private partnerships and the government's management policies were also strong. On the other hand, Korea has a large interaction, but the actual structure of cooperation between public and private insurance and management policies were weak. Because the non-benefit sector in Korea is relatively wide, it is difficult to manage compared to other countries where the concept of non-benefit is limited. In addition, the health authorities rarely perform the role of supervision over private health insurance, and they have so few linkages and cooperation for public-private insurance. Therefore, practical policy enforcement is necessary to achieve the easing of the burden of national medical expenses through linkage and cooperation of public-private health insurance with reference to relevant other countries' cases.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.121-127
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• 2017

The effort to measure and improve the quality of healthcare is a common health policy issue worldwide. Korean Value Incentive Programme is one of that effort, but some concerns exist. Compared to pay for performance program in other countries, it measures healthcare quality with relatively narrow performance domain using a small number of clinical indicators. It was designed without involving hospitals and other key stakeholder, and program participation was mandated. Highest and lowest performers get bonus and penalty using relative ranking. As a suggestion for development, the direction for quality management at the national level should be given first. Therefore the philosophy or strategy for quality improvement should be reflected to the program. And various domains and indicators of healthcare quality should be developed with active communication with healthcare providers. The evaluation method is necessary to be changed to provide achievable goal to the healthcare providers and attract quality improvement.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-4
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• 2021

With this as a momentum of approval Pfizer vaccine against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019), it is changed to the era of vaccine rapidly. Most countries are trying to reserve effective vaccines and inoculate vaccines into high-risk populations for achieving community immunity. I reviewed several vaccine-related issues to be confronted for moving up to the end of COVID-2019: the efficacy and effectiveness of the approved vaccines, the priorities for vaccination into target groups, side effects, and distrust towards COVID-2019 vaccines. Evidence-based decision-making in the policy process and collaboration with professional groups are the most effective strategies for driving successful vaccination policy.