• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.118-127
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• 2016

Purpose: The study purposes were to construct and test structural equation modeling on the causal relationship of community residents' perceived quality of care, image, and role performance with satisfaction, intention to (re)visit and intention to recommend hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 3,900 community residents from 39 district public hospitals. The questionnaire was designed to collected information on personal characteristics and community awareness of public hospitals. Community awareness consisted of 6 factors and 18 items. The data were collected utilizing call-interview by a survey company. Research data were collected via questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 20.0 and AMOS version 20.0. Results: Model fit indices for the hypothetical model were suitable for the recommended level: ${\chi}^2=796.40$ (df=79, p<.001), GFI=.93, AGFI=.90, RMSR=.08, NFI=.94. Quality of care, image, and role performance explained 68.1% of variance in community awareness. Total effect of quality of care process factors on satisfaction (path coefficients=3.67), intention to (re)visit (path coefficients=2.67) and intention to recommend hospital (coefficients=2.45) were higher than other factors. Conclusion: Findings show that public hospitals have to make an effort to improve community image through the provision of quality care, and excellent role performance. Support for these activities is available from both Central and Local Governments.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.167-176
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• 2017

Background: This study aimed to analyze the impact of community health care resources on the place of death of older adults with dementia compared to those with cancer in South Korea, using public administrative big data. Methods: Based on a literature review, we selected person- and community-level variables that can affect older people's decisions about where to die. Data on place-of-death and person-level attributes were obtained from the 2013 death certification micro data from Statistics Korea. Data on the population and economic and health care resources in the community where the older deceased resided were obtained from various open public administrative big data including databases on the local tax and resident population statistics, health care resources and infrastructure statistics, and long-term care (LTC) insurance statistics. Community-level data were linked to the death certificate micro data through the town (si-gun-gu) code of the residence of the deceased. Multi-level logistic regression models were used to simultaneously estimate the impacts of community as well as individual-level factors on the place of death. Results: In both the dementia (76.1%) and cancer (87.1%) decedent groups, most older people died in the hospital. Among the older deceased with dementia, hospital death was less likely to occur when the older person resided in a community with a higher supply of LTC facility beds, but hospital death was more likely to occur in communities with a higher supply of LTC hospital beds. Similarly, among the cancer group, the likelihood of a hospital death was significantly lower in communities with a higher supply of LTC facility beds, but was higher in communities with a higher supply of acute care hospital beds. As for individual-level factors, being female and having no spouse were associated with the likelihood of hospital death among older people with dementia. Conclusion: More than three in four older people with dementia die in the hospital, while home is reported to be the place of death preferred by Koreans. To decrease this gap, an increase in the supply of end-of-life (EOL) care at home and in community-based service settings is necessary. EOL care should also be incorporated as an essential part of LTC. Changes in the perception of EOL care by older people and their families are also critical in their decisions about the place of death, and should be supported by public education and other related non-medical, social approaches.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.67-75
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• 2012

Objectives: While there have recently been efforts to improve public health service at a governmental level, there is actually insufficient research on awareness of the roles related to public health service among hospital employees. This study examined role perception and function performance related to public health service among the medical staff in a national hospital. Methods: 15% were randomly sampled from each type of occupation among the medical staff in a national university hospital, a survey was conducted in 323 persons, and there were a total of 265 participants (80.2%): 103 doctors(38.9%), 98 nurses (37.0%), and 64 others (24.1%). Results: The hospital employees had insufficient awareness of their roles as public health service providers in terms of six required items for public health service: 1) services for supporting establishment, implementation, and assessment of public health service policies, 2) participation in the health service activities and support services by central or local governments, 3) technological support and educational services for private health service institutions, 4) health service for unprivileged brackets, 5) health service that requires association with other areas dealing with geriatric, disabled, and mentally-disordered people, and 6) health service for children and mothers. Conclusions: In general, since the hospital employees had insufficient awareness of their roles and responsibilities as public health service providers, it is necessary to secure manpower exclusively in charge of public health service and provide education about strategic public health service.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2022

Purpose: Health examination centers of regional public hospitals are essential facilities for strengthening preventive medical services in local communities. This study is to organize architectural planning data related to function, space, and area composition of health examination center by the size of the regional public hospitals. Methods: The literature review on the function and spatial composition of the health examination center and the drawings of the regional public hospitals were analyzed. Results: The result of this study can be summarized into several points. 1) The function of the health examination center consists of a diagnostic area, patient area, and staff area based on general examination and comprehensive examination. 2) The type of spatial composition of the 300-bed public hospital examination center is a spatial linkage type with examination rooms of the other departments where general examination and comprehensive examination are undifferentiated. 3) The examination center of public hospitals with 500 beds or more is composed of an independent space-separated type with self-installed examination rooms, and general examination and comprehensive examination are divided. 4) The examination center of public hospitals with 300 beds around, the diagnostic area occupies most of the total area, around 80%, but in public hospitals with 500 beds or more, the proportion of diagnostic area drops to 50-60%, and patient area increases to 30-40%. Implications: The examination center planning of public hospitals requires an architectural planning approach to the function and spatial composition according to the size of the hospital.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.349-364
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• 2011

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between new-building of rural public health centers and the outpatient medical utilization. Methods : The study subjects were 141 public health centers in rural area. The data were collected from 1995 to 2001, medical utilization and local population, healthcare resources, and economic characteristics were included. In order to evaluate new-building effects, we performed paired t-tests and multivariate regression analyses. Results : The following variables are significant affecting the medical utilization of rural public health centers: urban side location of public health centers(p<0.05), pre- and post-IMF economic crisis(p<0.001), number of medical aid recipients(p<0.01), number of private clinics(p<0.05), workers of public health centers(p<0.001), financial independent level of local governments(p<0.001). In contrast, the existence of new-building and number of the aged 65 and over were not significant variables. Conclusions : We could not find out the positive relationship between the existence of new-building and the volume of medical utilization in rural public health centers. In particular the medical utilization of rural public health centers is significantly affected by IMF economic recession and number of the poor strata, the economically depressed area.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.19-29
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• 2017

Purpose : To describe and understand the experience of QI (quality improvement) nurses related to the hospital QI activities in public general hospitals. Methods : Purposive sampling was conducted 10 QI nurses and who have QI work experience for more than 1 year. Data were collected through focus group interviews. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed with qualitative content analysis using Strauss and Corbin's methodology. Results : The core categories of experience with QI activities were 'the success and failure of the medical care and overall health service sector', 'the degree of activation of current QI activities', 'characteristics of public hospital QI activities', 'what is needed to activate future QI activities'. The key themes were derived as follows. 'Success of quality enhancement activities according to the characteristic of public hospitals', 'activation of public hospital QI activities through leadership and QI education', 'reorganizing the role of regional hospitals in public hospitals'. Conclusion : Physician participation is important in the success of QI activities in public hospital practice. To lead these physician participation, Sharing doctor's QI experience and providing the necessary knowledge in QI activities and helping their leadership in QI activities are needed. QI nurses at public hospitals should lead QI activities to improve national hospitals' care quality through cooperating with local hospitals.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.17-21
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• 2010

Objectives: This paper reviews the activities of health education specialist in public sector and the professional skills needed to perform the role. Results and Conclusion: Health education specialist is professional who educates individual, group, and community to practice voluntarily deeds beneficial to health and promotes to make healthy environment. Health education specialist works in public health center, hospital, workplace, and school to solve health problems. And also he can serve in health departments at central and local government. To do this, in addition to the basic skills health case management and health counseling skills are required. Health education specialist conducts health assessments on all aspects of life, and if necessary professional skills makes the connection. Ultimately, the main roles of health education specialist are primary health counseling related to living healthy lives and health coordinator.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.7-15
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• 2020

Purpose: This study aims to explore the feasibility of expanding complex wards to provide efficient hospital management and high-quality medical services to local residents of Gangneung Medical Center (GMC). Research Design, Data and Methodology: There are four research designs to achieve the research objectives. We analyzed Big Data for 3 months on Social Network Services (SNS). A questionnaire survey conducted on 219 patients visiting the GMC. Surveys of 20 employees of the GMC applied. The feasibility to expand the GMC ward measured through Focus Group Interview by 12 internal and external experts. Data analysis methods derived from various surveys applied with data mining technique, frequency analysis, and Importance-Performance Analysis methods, and IBM SPSS statistical package program applied for data processing. Results: In the result of the big data analysis, the GMC's recognition on SNS is high. 95.9% of the residents and 100.0% of the employees required the need for the complex ward extension. In the analysis of expert opinion, in the future functions of GMC, specialized care (△3.3) and public medicine (△1.4) increased significantly. Conclusion: GMC's complex ward extension is an urgent and indispensable project to provide efficient hospital management and service quality.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.47-67
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• 2007

This paper aims at suggesting several ways lo change financial vulnerability and to improve managerial capability of local public hospitals (LPHs) in Korea through the identification of factors affecting profitability. Several findings of the research are as follows: To begin with, LPHs exhibited a statistically significant difference in their profitability from one another, according to tile analyses of their profitable margins from tile general characteristics. It depends on the number of hospitals in the area, the population of the hospital-built area, the number of competing hospitals, the number of staff per 100 beds, the opening of special clinic, the educational function, and the capacity of rooms. However, there was no variable in the managerial characteristics, presenting a significant difference, in contrast with hospitals which have been managed by private companies and made a great amount of profits. Second, according to the analyses of profit differences in behavioral effort-characteristics, a statistically significant difference was revealed upon the basis of the efforts to improve the clinic service, invite special patients, and shorten the period of being hospitalized. Third, the result of analyses about the difference of profitability from medical care and finance is statistically significant in the rate of labor cost, the rate of management cost, bed-occupancy rate, and the period of being hospitalized. Fourth, according to the analyses of the factors influencing the net profit ratio of the entire capital, Adjusted explanatory power(Adjusted $R^2$) was shown up to 65.2%, which is high. To compare the adjusted explanatory power stage by stage, the first stage model applying only two variables such as structural and strategic characteristics exhibited 23.8%, and the second stage model adding financial characteristics showed 51.5%. The explanatory power was much improved up to 65.2% when the third stage model incorporated the outcome of medical care performance. When the return on investment(ROI) was examined by using the multi-variate linear regression analysis at the final model of third stage, it was found that ROI had a positive relationship with the increase rate of patients, labor costs per doctor, and medical care rate of socially protected inpatients. However, it revealed that ROI had a negative relationship with the ratio of labor costs, the number of patients per managerial staff, and occupancy rate of rooms, respectively. The research suggests that in order for LPHs to increase profitability, LPH, should make efforts not only to attract patients to the hospitals without any discrimination of the patients depending on their financial status, but also to develop efficient management methods to reduce labor costs.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.11 no.4 s.29
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• pp.17-24
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• 2005

The sustainable development of local communities is faced with limitation due to poor infrastructure and lack of cooperation among stake-holders. To overcome such circumstances and thus to ensure balanced development of the local communities, the central government is driving construction of innovative cities mainly through transfer of public institutions to local cities. In this study, to contribute to the development of plans for the future agropolis' associated with the transfer of public institutions, efficient organization mechanisms of the agropolis such as basic structure and spatial allocation was examined through analyses of advanced cases(Sophia Antipolis, St. Hyacinthe Science Part Food Valley, Stoneleigh Park) of foreign countries. The analyses showed that the organization of agropolis were consisted of three main components; 1) agricultural and food industry complex conducting R&D, 2) service facilities(information, trade, consulting and advertisement) supporting agricultural and food industries and rural enterprise center in charge of a variety of events including exhibition, rural experience, education, and contest, 3) silver facilities such as hospital and town providing medical service and residence. Based on the results, inventories of facilities which are necessary in 'the future agropolis' and their spatial allocation were suggested.