• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.391-399
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• 2011

Our study was carried out to analyze the variation factors of severity-adjusted length of stay(LOS) in coronary artery bypass graft(CABG). The subjects were 932 CABG inpatients of the Korean National Hospital Discharge In-depth Injury Survey from 2004 through 2008. The data were analyzed using $x^2$ test and the severity-adjusted model was developed using data mining technique. The results of the study were as follows: male(71.1%), older than 61 years of age(61.6%), more than 500 beds(92.8%) and admitting via ambulatory care(70.0%) appeared to have higher rate than otherwise. In-hospital mortality of CABG inpatients was 2.8%. In addition, 46.4% of the patients received their care in other residence. The angina pectoris(45.6%) was found to be the highest in principle diagnosis, followed by chronic ischemic heart disease(36.9%) and acute myocardial infarction(12.0%). We developed severity-adjusted LOS model using the variables such as gender, age and comorbidity. Comparison of adjusted values in predicted LOS revealed that there were significant variations in LOS by location of hospital, bed size, and whether patients received the care in their residences. The variations of LOS can be explained as the indirect indicator for quality variation of medical process. It is suggested that the severity-adjusted LOS model developed in this study should be utilized as a useful method for benchmarking in hospital and it is necessary that national standard clinical practice guideline should be developed.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.112-129
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• 1996

Background : A small number of high cost patients usually spend a larger proportion of scarce health resources. Aged, long-term care and readmitted patients usually belong to these high cost patient group. Among others, long length of stay and readmission can be reduced by checking its cause, and these are the areas needed most of quality improvement activity. Characteristics of high cost medical users between health insurance program and medical assistance program were reviewed. Methods : The inpatient claims of health insurance and medical assistance program were analyzed. Patients were divided by 6 groups; long-term, mid-term, short-term, readmitted, cancer and aged. We defined high cost patients as those who had spent one and half million won and over per 6 months. Characteristics of high cost patients for each group were reviewed. Results : medical assistance patients used much more resources than the insured members in the average hospital cost per case but less in daily hospital cost. The former had a longer length of stay and had much heavier diseases. Major diseases of both group were cancer, diseases of circulatory system and chronic degenerative diseases. Gallstone and schizophrenia were more in the insured program. However, pulmonary tuberculosis, asthma were more common among the medical assistance patients. Early readmission before 2 weeks were 28-30% of the total readmission. Readmission rate in the malignat neoplasm and renal failure were 80% and more. Q.A program should be installed to prevent unnecessary readmissions. Conclusion : Almost 30% of early readmissions and admissions due to complications and long length of stay should be reviewed carefully to keep cost down and to enhance the quality of hospital care.

• Clinics in Shoulder and Elbow
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 2023

Background: Shoulder instability procedures have low morbidity; however, complications can arise that result in readmission to an inpatient healthcare facility. The purpose of this study is to identify the demographics and risk factors associated with unplanned 30-day readmission and reoperation following arthroscopic and open treatment for shoulder instability. Methods: The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database was queried to find patients who underwent shoulder instability surgery from 2015 to 2019. Independent sample Student t-tests, chi-square, and (where appropriate) Fisher's exact tests were used in univariate analyses to identify demographic, lifestyle, and perioperative variables related to 30-day readmission and reoperation following repair for shoulder instability. Multivariate logistic regression modeling was subsequently performed. Results: Of the 11,230 cases included in our sample, only 0.54% were readmitted, and 0.23% underwent reoperation within the 30-day postoperative period. Multivariate logistic regression modeling confirmed that the following patient variables were associated with statistically significantly increased odds of readmission and reoperation: open repair, congestive heart failure (CHF), and hospital length of stay. Conclusions: Unplanned 30-day readmission and reoperation after shoulder instability surgery is infrequent. Patients with American Society of Anesthesiologists class II, CHF, longer than average hospital length of stay, or an open procedure have higher odds of readmission than patients without those factors. Patients who have CHF, longer than average hospital length of stay, and open surgery have higher odds of reoperation than others. Arthroscopic procedures should be used to manage shoulder instability, if possible. Level of evidence: III.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.357-371
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• 2022

Purpose: This study aims to investigate factors related to long-term length of stay (LOS) of patients with chronic diseases in Korean veterans hospitals. Methods: The subjects were 196 elderly patients with chronic disease staying in the hospital for more than 10 days, Data were collected by the survey of patients with structured questionnaires and medical records review by nurses from July 15 to August 10, 2019. Collected data were analyzed using t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression. Results: The present and desired LOS were 37.78±32.66 days and 60.87±45.95 days, respectively. Factors affecting hospital LOS were found to be main disease (genitourinary) (p<.001), assistance in activities of daily living (p<.001), area of hospital (p<.001), payment of medical fees (p=.026), hospital satisfaction (p=.036) and the explanatory power of these variables was 26.4%. The most common health problems that need to be solved after discharge were symptom alleviation and health promotion. These problems can be solved using community-based facility services or visiting medical-welfare services (especially home care nursing). Conclusion: In order to reduce hospital LOS, the following measures are required: personalized self-management education, provision of transportation services for dialysis therapy of inactive patients, linking patients with visiting medical-welfare services including home care nursing and mobile healthcare services, operation of the case management system including the notice of the discharge date at admission, interim check of patient status, and connecting the patient with community resources or transferring the patient to long-term care facilities at discharge.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.22-45
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• 2004

This study was performed to identify factors affecting the profitability of private hospitals in Korea different and to make informations that could be very helpful to hospitals in improving profitability. Data used in this study were collected from 112 hospitals with complete general data of present conditions as well as financial statements(balance sheets, income statements). They were chosen from hospitals that passed the standardization audit undertaken by the Korean Hospital Association from 1998 to 2001 for the purpose of accrediting training hospitals. The dependent variables were used operating margin to total assets and operating margin to gross revenues as proxy indicators for profitability. The independent variables were ownership type, location, bed size, period of establishment, debt to total assets, current ratio, fixed ratio, total asset turnover, average length of stay, bed occupancy rate, admission ratio of outpatients, personnel costs per adjusted inpatient, and fiscal years. The factors had significantly positive effect on operating margin to total assets and operating margin to gross revenues were bed size, total asset turnover. And the factors had significantly negative effect on operating margin to total assets and operating margin to gross revenues were period of establishment, debt to total assets, average length of stay, personnel costs per adjusted inpatient. The adjusted $R^2$ of multiple regression equation was 25.2%, 21.4% respectively. It is very important for private hospitals to improve profitability by raising total asset turnover, and reducing debt to total assets, average length of stay, and personnel costs per adjusted inpatient using the rational and efficient business strategy.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.409-415
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• 2019

Background: Postoperative chylothorax may be caused by iatrogenic injury of the collateral lymphatic ducts after thoracic surgery. Although traditional treatment could be considered in most cases, resolution may be slow. Radiological interventions have recently been developed to manage postoperative chylothorax. This study aimed to compare radiological interventions and conservative management in patients with postoperative chylothorax. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed periprocedural drainage time, length of hospital stay, and nil per os (NPO) duration in 7 patients who received radiological interventions (intervention group [IG]) and in 9 patients who received conservative management (non-intervention group [NG]). Results: The baseline characteristics of the patients in the IG and NG were comparable; however, the median drainage time and median length of hospital stay after detection of chylothorax were significantly shorter in the IG than in the NG (6 vs. 10 days, p=0.036 and 10 vs. 20 days, p=0.025, respectively). NPO duration after chylothorax detection and total drainage duration were somewhat shorter in the IG than in the NG (5 vs. 7 days and 8 vs. 14 days, respectively). Conclusion: This study showed that radiological interventions reduced the duration of drainage and the length of hospital stay, allowing an earlier return to normal life. To overcome several limitations of this study, a prospective, randomized controlled trial with a larger number of patients is recommended.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.13
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• pp.5389-5393
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• 2014

Background: A clinical pathway (CP) can standardize and improve perioperative care for a number of interventions. In hepatic surgery, however, pertinent evidence is very limited. This study was conducted to implement a CP for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients undergoing hepatectomy, and to evaluate its effects on hospital costs, length of hospital stay (LOHS) and early clinical outcomes. Materials and Methods: Medical records for HCC patients undergoing hepatectomy were retrospectively reviewed before implementation of a CP (the non-CP group) from March 2012 to August 2012. This information was compared with the data collected prospectively from patients after implementation of the CP (the CP group) between September 2012 and April 2013. Hospital costs, LOHS and early clinical outcomes were evaluated and compared between groups. Results: There were no significant differences in terms of patient clinical characteristics between the two groups. For clinical outcome measures, no significant differences were found in postoperative complications, mortality and readmission rate. The hospital costs were significantly reduced from 24,844 RMB in the non-CP group to 19,761 RMB in the CP group (p<0.01). In addition, patients of the CP group also had shorter LOHS compared with the non-CP group (8.3 versus 12.3 days, p<0.001). Conclusions: The CP proved to be an effective approach to minimize hospital costs and LOHS with hepatectomy for HCC without compromising patient care.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.1424-1432
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• 2009

For the efficient management of hospital sickbeds, it is important to predict the length of stay (LoS) of appendicitis patients. This study analyzed the patient data to find factors that show high positive correlation with LoS, build LoS prediction models using neural network and decision tree models, and compare their performance. In order to increase the prediction accuracy, we applied the ensemble techniques such as bagging and boosting. Experimental results show that decision tree model which was built with less number of variables shows prediction accuracy almost equal to that of neural network model, and that bagging is better than boosting. In conclusion, since the decision tree model which provides better explanation than neural network model can well predict the LoS of appendicitis patients and can also be used to select the input variables, it is recommended that hospitals make use of the decision tree techniques more actively.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.418-429
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• 2020

Background: This study aims to analyze the cost and the length of stay (LOS) of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients with coronary artery stenting according to the characteristics of individuals and institutions. Methods: The data was collected from Korean National Health Insurance Service's customized database in 2010 and 2015. Chi-square test, t-test, analysis of variance, and multilevel analysis were performed. Results: The intraclass correlation coefficients for cost were 7.02% in 2010, 5.61% in 2015 and for LOS were 3.17%, 1.40%, respectively. The average costs were 9,067,000 won in 2010 and 9,889,000 won in 2015 (p<0.0001). However, the cost in 2015 was lower than the cost applying increased fee. The costs increased in aged 50-59 years, 60-69 years, and aged ≥70 years versus in aged under 49 years. The cost was higher in Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) 3 to 4 and ≥5 than in CCI 0. The costs were lower in male, medical aid recipients, metropolises, and local hospitals in other regions in 2010. LOS decreased from 8.1 days in 2010 to 7.4 days in 2015. It decreased in male, high income group, and the group of admission via emergency room. However, it increased in higher ages and medical aid recipients, and it also increased when CCI rose. The Internal Herfindahl Index was related to LOS in 2010. Conclusion: The variation of hospital level was small compared to the patient level. Therefore, it is important to implement applicable policies at the patient level in order to reduce cost and LOS of AMI patients.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.195-212
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• 2011

Objectives: This study investigates the relationship between nurse staffing levels and differences in patient outcomes in terms of average length of stay, in-hospital mortality rate and 30-day death rate in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a policy that differentiates fees for inpatients on the basis of nurse-to-bed ratios. Methods: We obtained information on inpatients from health insurance claims data published by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service(HIRA) in 2008, organizational factors(type of hospital, ownership) from the records of the hospital report system in 2008, and nurse staffing levels, which were graded on a scale of 1 to 7, from data compiled between December 15, 2007, and September 20, 2008. The data were segregated according to type of hospital and quarter and finally 3,517 records of 1,182 hospitals were analyzed using multi-level analysis. Results: The average length of stay in grade 1~6 hospitals was lower than that in grade 7 ones, but the difference was much below one day. No significant difference was found among different grades in tertiary hospitals. Further, variations in staffing levels did not result in any significant difference in the in-hospital mortality rate and 30-day death rate. Conclusions: High nurse staffing levels did not result in better patient outcomes compared with low staffing levels. We therefore recommend modifying the above nurse staffing policy so as to make it more effective in improving patient outcomes.