• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
• /
• 2006.08a
• /
• pp.8-9
• /
• 2006

• Information Systems Review
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.45-65
• /
• 2007

In medical industry, health insurance bill audit is unique and essential process in general hospitals. The health insurance bill audit process is very important because not only for hospital's profit but also hospital's reputation. Particularly, at the large general hospitals many related workers including analysts, nurses, and etc. have engaged in the health insurance bill audit process. This paper introduces a case of health insurance bill audit for finding reducible health insurance bill cases using decision tree induction techniques at a large general hospital in Korea. When supervised learning methods had been tried to be applied, one of major problems was data imbalance problem in the health insurance bill audit data. In other words, there were many normal(passing) cases and relatively small number of reduction cases in a bill audit dataset. To resolve the problem, in this study, well-known methods for imbalanced data sets including over sampling of rare cases, under sampling of major cases, and adjusting the misclassification cost are combined in several ways to find appropriate decision trees that satisfy required conditions in health insurance bill audit situation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
• /
• 2002.09a
• /
• pp.17-18
• /
• 2002

Last year, a three-year research program was started in order to establish an external audit system to radiotherapy QA in Japan. It consists of questionnaire surveys, mailed (off-site) dosimetry and visited (on-site) dosimetry at radiotherapy facilities in Japan. The first questionnaire was sent to all Japanese radiotherapy facilities in October 2001, surveying basic QA procedures at each facility. 628 answers were returned with the return rate of 87%. In February 2002, the second questionnaire was sent. Off-site and on-site dosimetry have been tested in several facilities, and will be started soon. We anticipates that this program will gradually grow to a radiotherapy quality control center similar to Radiological Physics Center at MD Anderson Hospital.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.127-144
• /
• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the drinking behavior of university students in Jeju for the safe campus life. Methods: A self-reported questionnaire was completed by 549 students in 4 universities in Jeju. The data were analyzed by t-test, one way ANOVA, and multiple regression using SPSS Win 19.0 program. The questionnaire instruments consisted of Alcohol Use Disorders of Identification Test-Korea (AUDIT-K) and Life Stress Scale for College Students adapted by Chon. Results: The alcohol consumption rate of participants accounted for 96.2%. The binge drinking rate in female students were 33.9% and that in male students was 29.5%. The result by scoring AUDIT showed that 30.7% of participants were normal drinking group, 36.0% were hazardous drinking group, and 33.3% were estimated alcohol abuse group. The average score of stress was 1.45 by Likert 4 point scale. The female students tended to have more stresses than male. The most important influencing factors on drinking behavior were the first alcohol drinking(${\beta}=-.250$, p< .001), gender(${\beta}=.202$, p< .001), and relationship problem(${\beta}=.116$, p < .05). Conclusion: The drinking rate of university students revealed higher than that in other age groups. So the early systematic education is strongly recommended to prevent the physical and mental side effects.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.16 no.6
• /
• pp.2465-2472
• /
• 2015

Background: The Quality Audit (BQA) program of the Breast Surgeons of Australia and New Zealand (NZ) collects data on early female breast cancer and its treatment. BQA data covered approximately half all early breast cancers diagnosed in NZ during roll-out of the BQA program in 1998-2010. Coverage increased progressively to about 80% by 2008. This is the biggest NZ breast cancer database outside the NZ Cancer Registry and it includes cancer and clinical management data not collected by the Registry. We used these BQA data to compare socio-demographic and cancer characteristics and survivals by ethnicity. Materials and Methods: BQA data for 1998-2010 diagnoses were linked to NZ death records using the National Health Index (NHI) for linking. Live cases were followed up to December $31^{st}$ 2010. Socio-demographic and invasive cancer characteristics and disease-specific survivals were compared by ethnicity. Results: Five-year survivals were 87% for Maori, 84% for Pacific, 91% for other NZ cases and 90% overall. This compared with the 86% survival reported for all female breast cases covered by the NZ Cancer Registry which also included more advanced stages. Patterns of survival by clinical risk factors accorded with patterns expected from the scientific literature. Compared with Other cases, Maori and Pacific women were younger, came from more deprived areas, and had larger cancers with more ductal and fewer lobular histology types. Their cancers were also less likely to have a triple negative phenotype. More of the Pacific women had vascular invasion. Maori women were more likely to reside in areas more remote from regional cancer centres, whereas Pacific women generally lived closer to these centres than Other NZ cases. Conclusions: NZ BQA data indicate previously unreported differences in breast cancer biology by ethnicity. Maori and Pacific women had reduced breast cancer survival compared with Other NZ women, after adjusting for socio-demographic and cancer characteristics. The potential contributions to survival differences of variations in service access, timeliness and quality of care, need to be examined, along with effects of comorbidity and biological factors.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
• /
• v.51 no.1
• /
• pp.80-86
• /
• 2024

Background Among the cleft types, bilateral cleft lip and palate (BCLP) generally requires multiple surgical procedures and extended speech therapy to achieve normal speech development. This study aimed to describe speech outcomes in 5-year-old Korean children with BCLP and examine whether normal speech could be achieved before starting school. Methods The retrospective study analyzed 52 children with complete BCLP who underwent primary palatal surgery at a tertiary medical center. Three speech-language pathologists made perceptual judgments on recordings from a speech follow-up assessment of 5-year-old children. They assessed the children's speech in terms of articulation, speech intelligibility, resonance, and voice using the Cleft Audit Protocol for Speech-Augmented-Korean Modification. Results The results indicated that at the age of five, 65 to 70% of children with BCLP presented articulation and resonance within normal or acceptable ranges. Further, seven children with BCLP (13.5%) needed both additional speech therapy and palatal surgery for persistent velopharyngeal insufficiency and speech problems even at the age of five. Conclusion This study confirmed that routine follow-up speech assessments are essential as a substantial number of children with BCLP require secondary surgical procedures and extended speech therapy to achieve normal speech development.

• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.122-129
• /
• 2021

Purpose: This study aimed to design a multipurpose dose verification phantom for external audits to secure safe and optimal radiation therapy. Methods: In this study, we used International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) LiF powder thermoluminescence dosimeter (TLD), which is generally used in the therapeutic radiation dose assurance project. The newly designed multipurpose phantom (MPP) consists of a container filled with water, a TLD holder, and two water-pressing covers. The size of the phantom was designed to be sufficient (30×30×30 cm³). The water container was filled with water and pressed with the cover for normal incidence to be fixed. The surface of the MPP was devised to maintain the same distance from the source at all times, even in the case of oblique incidence regardless of the water level. The MPP was irradiated with 6, 10, and 15 MV photon beams from Varian Linear Accelerator and measured by a 1.25 cm³ ionization chamber to get the correction factors. Monte Carlo (MC) simulation was also used to compare the measurements. Results: The result obtained by MC had a relatively high uncertainty of 1% at the dosimetry point, but it showed a correction factor value of 1.3% at the 5 cm point. The energy dependence was large at 6 MV and small at 15 MV. Various dosimetric parameters for external audits can be performed within an hour. Conclusions: The results allow an objective comparison of the quality assurance (QA) of individual hospitals. Therefore, this can be employed for external audits or QA systems in radiation therapy institutions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
• /
• 2006.08a
• /
• pp.112-112
• /
• 2006

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.14 no.9
• /
• pp.4993-4998
• /
• 2013

Background: A retrospective analysis of all cancer patients attending the radiotherapy outpatient department (OPD) of a single unit during the period of January 2005 till December 2006 was conducted to know the geographical distribution and incidence of the most common cancers, their stage of presentation, treatment compliance among the patients and follow-up. Materials and Methods: A total of 4,484 patients were registered in the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University during the period of January 2005-December 2006; of which 1,975 registered in an individual unit were included for the retrospective analysis. Results: Most of the patients hailed from the various districts of UP and Bihar. Females outnumbered males with a ratio of 1.33:1. Females mostly belonged to the age group of 40-59 years; whilst males were a decade older. Major cancer sites in females were cervix and breast followed by head and neck. Leading cancer sites in males were head and neck, brain, bone, soft tissue and lung. Most of the cases presented in advanced stage of disease (74%). Squamous cell carcinoma was the most common histopathology (56%). A significant proportion of patients defaulted after undergoing preliminary investigations (16%). Only 53.9% of females and 58.5% of males took treatment out of which 68% and 63% completed the prescribed treatment. Compliance with follow-up was poor. Conclusions: The outcome of this study will significantly help us to define region specific strategies needed for cancer management in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

• The Journal of KAIRB
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.37-48
• /
• 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess the operational status and level of understanding among IRB and HRPP staffs at a hospital or a research institute to the HRPP guideline set by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) and to provide recommendations. Methods: Online survey was distributed among members of Korean Association of IRB (KAIRB) through each IRB office. The result was separated according to topic and descriptive statistics was used for analysis. Result: Survey notification was sent out to 176 institutions and 65 (37.1%) institutions answered the survey by online. Of 65 institutions that answered the survey; 83.1% was hospital, 12.3% was university, 3.1% was medical college, 1.5% was research institution. 23 institutions (25.4%) established independent HRPP offices and 39 institutions (60.0%) did not. 12 institutions (18.5%) had separate IRB and HRPP heads, 21 (32.3%) institutions separated business reporting procedure and person in charge, 12 institutions separated the responsibility of IRB and HRPP among staff, and 45 institutions (69.2%) had audit & non-compliance managers. When asked about the most important basic task for HRPP, 23% answered self-audit. And according to 43.52%, self-audit was also the most by both institutions that operated HRPP and institutions that did not. When basic task performance status was analyzed, on average, the institutions that operated HRPP was 14% higher than institutions that only operated IRB. 9 (13.8%) institutions were evaluated and obtained HRPP accreditation from MFDS and the most common reason for obtaining the accreditation was to be selected as Institution for the education of persons conducting clinical trial (6 institutions). The most common reason for not obtaining HRPP accreditation was because of insufficient staff and limited capacity of the institution (28%). Institutions with and without a plan to be HRPP accredited by MFDS were 20 (37.7%) each. 34 institutions (52.3%) answered HRPP evaluation method and accreditation by MFDS was appropriate while 31 institutions (47.7%) answered otherwise. 36 institutions answered that HRPP evaluation and accreditation by MFDS was credible while 29 institutions (44.5%) answered that HRPP evaluation method and accreditation by MFDS was not credible. Conclusion: 1. MFDS's HRPP accreditation program can facilitate the main objective of HRPP and MFDS's HRPP accreditation program should be encouraged to non-tertiary hospitals by taking small staff size into consideration and issuing accreditation by segregating accreditation. 2. While issuing Institution for the education of persons conducting clinical trial status as a benefit of MFDS's HRPP accreditation program, it can also hinder access to MFDS's HRPP accreditation program. It should also be considered that the non-contact culture during COVID-19 pandemic eliminated time and space limitation for education. 3. For clinical research conducted internally by an institution, internal audit is the most effective and sole method of protecting safety and right of the test subjects and integrity for research in Korea. For this reason, regardless of the size of the institution, an internal audit should be enforced. 4. It is necessary for KAIRB and MFDSto improve HRPP awareness by advocating and educating the concept and necessity of HRPP in clinical research. 5. A new HRPP accreditation system should be setup for all clinical research with human subjects, including Investigational New Drug (IND) application in near future.