• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.4-11
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• 2016

Background: Hospital admissions for ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs), which are widely used as an indicator of poor access to primary care, can be used as an efficiency indicator of healthcare use in countries providing good access to health care. Korea, which has a national health insurance (NHI) system and a good supply of health care resources, is one such country. To quantify admission rates of ACSC and identify characteristics influencing variation in Korean health care institutions. Methods: By using NHI claims data, we computed the mean ACSC admission rate for all institutions with ACSC admissions. Results: The average ACSC admission rate for 4,461 institutions was 1.45%. Hospitals and clinics with inpatient beds showed larger variations in the ACSC admission rate (0%-87.9% and 0%-99.6%, respectively) and a higher coefficient of variation (7.96 and 2.29) than general/tertiary care hospitals (0%-19.1%, 0.85). The regression analysis results indicate that the ACSC admission rate was significantly higher for hospitals than for clinics (${\beta}=0.986$, p<0.05), and for private corporate institutions than public institutions (${\beta}=0.271$, p<0.05). Conclusion: Substantial variations in ACSC admission rates could suggest the potential problem of inefficient use of healthcare resources. Since hospitals and private corporate institutions tend to increase ACSC admission rates, future health policy should focus on these types of institutions.

• Journal of Haehwa Medicine
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2015

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to examine senior citizens' perception of medical welfare service in Daejeon, and to investigate the level of Korean Medicine University students' satisfaction about medical services that they have done. Methods : We visited Daejeon city hall and Dae jeon Seo-gu community health center, and interviewed them. After that we select two population and did two different surveys. First, to investigate the current state of medical services and medical welfare in Daejeon, we select neglected class senior citizens who were serviced at social welfare center. Second, we select Daejeon Korean Medicine University student to investigate the level of satisfaction about medical services and pre-education. In first population, we random select 25 of 34 senior citizen who visits mere social welfare center. In second population, we random select 78 of 115 Korean Medicine University student who belongs to medical welfare club. Results : We found some advantages and problems in medical services. A lot of senior citizen who were serviced at social welfare center showed high level of satisfaction about medical service. But there were few citizens who knows about health & medical welfare. And most Korean Medicine University student who services medical service to neglected class senior citizens showed high level of satisfaction. Conclusion : We concluded that medical welfare for senior citizen needs more publicizing. Because result of our survey, many senior citizens showed not only low level of recognition in medical welfare service, also showed low utilization rate in public health center. And most Korean Medicine University students were satisfied with themselves about medical service that they have done, it seemed medical service gives beneficial influence to not only senior citizen but also Korean Medicine University student.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.102-120
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• 2001

This paper examines the current situation and major impacts of e-business on healthcare industry: hospital, pharmaceutical, medical device and health-related internet sectors. Of the 137 samples collected with mail survey, the utilization rate of B2C e-commerce is 31.4% and B2B is 13.1%. And 74.5% of respondents remains the first development stage which represents the simple advertisement such as the one-way information offering. The key obstacle of expansion of health care e-commerce turns out to be the illogical and outdated medical-related law and institution. Finally, policy recommendations are proposed based on the evaluation of the current policy implemented by government.

• 대한예방의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.504-504
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• 2005

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.59-76
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• 2010

The knowledge of customer in healthcare service industry is widely accepted as one of the key information for the customers' satisfaction. Previous studies on the customer knowledge about service recovery showed that service providers are having difficulties with standardizing interaction with customer, This study investigated the attribution according to the failure in providing medical services and customer's participation as preceding variable of attribution. A survey was carried out targeting an obesity clinic having high participating rate from May 10 to May 28, 2010. The research results revealed that from whom the responsibility of the service failure originated between the patients and the medical institutions depending on the extent of the patients involvement in service process.

• Journal of Technologic Dentistry
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.43-61
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• 1993

This study was conducted to determine factors influencing dental technicians recognition level of their occupational disease. After self-administered questionnaire were distributed by mail to 540 technicians clustered samplely semplely selected from dental laboratories resistered in seoul and pusan Korean Dental Laboratory Association 395 technicians responded from march 29 through April 27, 1993. The results are as follows. 1. The recognition level of an occupational disease of the total 395 respondents by sex is higher among male than female. The difference was found to be meaningful(p <.05). 2. When the recognition level of an occupational disease being tested with 45 as the highest point possible, the average point 31.41 $\pm$ 6.50 of the total respondents reflected a high level of recognition. The highly recognized items were stress, bronchial disease, hearing loss. 3. With the highest points in Wallston and Wallstons' health locus of control in personality being 54, the average points of the dental technicians in the study was 35.41 $\pm$ 4.93. 4. As for the medical care patterns, the rate was higher among local medical insurance 64.4% than none 16.8%, company medical isurance 9.2%, medical aide 6.7%, others 2.6%. As for the experience of utilization of outpatient servelies, Yes was 40.4% and 59.6%, showing a meaningful difference(t=.80, p<.05).01) accounted total variance of the factors influencing dental technicians recognition level of their occupational disease(p<.0.000), R-squaire is 0.08.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.191-198
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• 2017

Moon Jae-in Government announced the Government's 5-Year Plan on July 19, 2017, President Moon directly announced the Government's Plan for Benefit Expansion in National Health Insurance on August 7, 2017. The main contents of the announced expansion include benefit coverage for all medically necessary services with control over non-covered service occurrence, a decrease in the cost-sharing upper limit, and monetary support for catastrophic medical costs. Although past governments have been continuously striving for benefit expansion in the last 15 years, this plan has its breakthrough aspect in that all medical services will be covered by the National Health Insurance. In alignment, there are important tasks to solve: attaining a proper fee schedule, reforming the healthcare delivery system, and improving healthcare quality. This plan is a symptom oriented action in that it is limited in reducing patients' out-of-pocket money, unlike the systematic approach of the National Health Insurance. The sustainability of the National Health Insurance is being threatened due to South Korea's low birth rate, rapidly aging society, and low economic growth, in addition to the unification issue of the Korean Peninsula, medical utilization of the elderly, management of non-communicable diseases, and so on. Therefore, the Government needs to plan the National Health Insurance system reformation including actions addressed toward medical consumers.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.21-40
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• 1999

One Diagnosis Related Group(DRG) pilot study participating hospital was measured and analyzed to see if there were any changes after the DRG program. It was implemented in consideration of medical service utilization, hospital charges, and non-covered medical service charges by insurance in all Cesarean section cases by reviewing medical records for 3 years, including 1 year before pilot study as well as 1 and 2 years after, respectively. The results were as follows: First, the use of intramuscular antibiotics decreased statistically significantly, whereas intravenous use did not. Second, the administration period and charges of antianemic medication decreased significantly, where the prescription was appropriate. Third, the length of hospital stay decreased statistically significantly. Fourth, there were significant statistical differences in cost sharing between the insured and the insurer: cost sharing of the insured was reduced, whereas the share of the insurer increased. However, there was no change in the quality of care. Fifth, there were no statistically significant changes in the Cesarean section rate. As a result, if the fee schedule is reasonably high, hospitals can provide quality care. This DRG pilot study resulted expected outcomes: by paying a higher fee schedule than fee-for-service, then hospitals can provide quality care to their patients and increase hospital profits.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.376-383
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• 2008

High-flux dialysis treatment removes various toxins via diffusion as well as convection, which is induced by ultrafiltration and backfiltration. In this study, in vitro (Using the distilled water and the bovine's blood) comparison test was performed to determine whether utilization of a high flux dialyzer paired with different pumps would increase the efficiency of convection. At the same blood flow rates, a pulsatile pump and a roller pump were employed to propel the distilled water and bovine whole blood to a high flux dialyzer. Pressures at the dialyzer inlet and outlet in the blood circuit and in the dialysate circuit were measured, respectively. From these data, we calculated the transmembrane pressure and predicted the ultrafiltration and backfiltration rates developed by both pumps. Using the bovine's blood experiment, ultrafiltration and backfiltration rates were 1.6 times higher with the pulsatile pump than with the roller pump. We conclude that utilization of a pulsatile pump in high flux hemodialysis treatments increases ultrafiltration volume, compared with a roller pump under conditions of the same blood flow rate.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.107-116
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• 2018

Objective: This study analyzed the national claims data of veterans to generate scientific evidence of the trends and appropriateness of their drug utilization in an outpatient setting. Methods: The claims data were provided by the Health Insurance Review & Assessment (HIRA). Through sampling and matching data, we selected two comparable groups; Veterans vs. National Health Insurance (NHI) patients and Veterans vs. Medical Aid (MAID) patients. Drug use and costs were compared between groups by using multivariate gamma regression models to account for the skewed distribution, and therapeutic duplication was analyzed by using multivariate logistic regression models. Results: In equivalent conditions, veteran patients made fewer visits to medical institutions (0.88 vs. 1), had 1.86 times more drug use, and paid 1.4 times more drug costs than NHI patients (p<0.05); similarly, veteran patients made fewer visits to medical institutions (0.96 vs. 1), had 1.11 times more drug use, and paid 0.95 times less drug costs than MAID patients (p<0.05). The risk of therapeutic duplication was 1.7 times higher (OR=1.657) in veteran patients than in NHI patients and 1.3 times higher (OR=1.311) than in MAID patients (p<0.0001). Conclusion: Similar patterns of drug use were found in veteran patients and MAID patients. There were greater concerns about the drug use behavior in veteran patients, with longer prescribing days and a higher rate of therapeutic duplication, than in MAID patients. Efforts should be made to measure if any inefficiency exists in veterans' drug use behavior.