• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.111-132
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• 2014

Recently, there have been discussions about the necessity of consumer arbitration such as ADR. The debate has progressed, because this area of arbitration has expanded into the press and medical fields. However, there is not an act for regulating consumer arbitration in South Korea. Thus, this issue has been deliberated at UNCITRAL Working Group III. The core issue of this deliberation is the validity of consumer arbitration. Especially if a pre-dispute arbitration agreement is contracted online, it progresses by using standardized terms; therefore it is possible that the Standardized Terms Regulating Act judges the relevant terms. This thesis consists of the following: First, concepts and categories of arbitration agreements. These include arbitration agreement, pre-dispute arbitration agreement, and arbitration agreement through standardized terms. Second, the validity of the above agreements will be discussed. There are three positions concerning their validity: affirmative as de lege ferenda, negative, and restrictively negative. Similar discussions concerning German law and cases would be helpful to specify and compare the issue. When a consumer arbitration agreement is contracted through standardized terms, it is necessary that the required formality of the agreement has been satisfied, before the effect of the agreement may be regulated by the German Civil Code.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-31
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• 2014

This study aimed to find marketing strategy through comparison of internet homepage between national-public hospitals and private hospitals in Korea. A total of 51 hospitals' data were used with frequency, chi-square, t-test, multi-regression, correlation analysis. They were verified by SPSS Ver. 15.0 program. According to the result of this research, national-public hospitals operated more contents of public interests such as social contribution, volunteer work than private hospitals. Otherwise private hospitals operated more contents of costumer interests such as customer counselling, statistical data and cafe of customer voices than national-public hospitals. Synthetically we find that private hospitals try to get closer to the consumer than national-public hospitals. Because feedback and interaction between hospitals and consumer are very important, we suggest that national-public hospitals and private hospitals mutually should operate internet homepage in accordance with consumer needs of medical market.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.138-156
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• 2010

Objective : The purpose of this study is 1) to understand the information-searching behavior of health care consumers ; 2) to examine the relationship between the information-searching behavior of health-care consumers and regulatory variables such as socioeconomic factors, characteristics of medical utilization, and perceived risks ; and 3) to determine the factors that affect consumer satisfaction, especially with respect to information-searching behavior. Method : The data for this study were collected from 838 respondents in five university hospital located in three areas?Seoul, Gyeonggi province, and Chungchong province. As the first step of the study, we conducted a preliminary survey from September 23?26, 2008. At the second step, we conducted a survey on the effect of information-searching behavior on those individuals who had visited. Furthermore, personal interviews were conducted through a face-to-face survey between September 30 and October 17, 2008. Results : The major research findings that were obtained from the study were as follows : First, the age, educational level, and residential district were associated with information source utilization. Second, the level of information searching effort and quality of service had a significant effect on consumer satisfaction. Conclusion : These results show that it is essential for marketers to have in-depth knowledge about the young and educated people who actively search for information and about those who are in the prime of their life and rely on word-of-mouth communication from personal and experi in-al informers. Therefore, marketers should develop different marketing strategies to meet the needs of such consumers.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.15-28
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• 2007

Objectives: In this paper, the survey on internet usage patterns of health consumers was conducted and analyzed in order to determine internet health information assessment criteria for providing correct consumer health information on web-sites. Methods: By using a survey questionnaire with 16 questions on general information and 20 questions on internet health information, data were collected from September 16 to 25, 2005 from 476 participants through an internet web site, http://www.hp.go.kr. Frequency analysis, t-test, and multiple regression were used in order to analyze the difference in assessment criteria, factors influencing assessment criteria, factors influencing user satisfaction, etc. Results: General characteristics of the study population were: the persons over age 40 were the smallest age group; women were accounted for 74.2%; and the persons with average income were the largest income group; and the persons with average health status were the largest health group. Most widely used health information were: exercise, disease, and diet, in order. There was significant difference(p=.001) in importance of assessment criteria between the persons in medical institutions and the persons not in medical institutions. There was no significant difference in other assessment criteria. We also found that contents of websites and easy to use were more important factors than elucidation of information providers and information sources including speciality of information in quality assessment criteria of internet health information. Discussion and Conclusion: Results of this paper were compared with the previous studies from the literatures. Contrary to the previous studies in the literature, there was significant difference in importance of assessment criteria between the persons in medical institutions and the persons not in medical institutions. In order to apply the study results to develop health contents for consumer, there is a need for further upgrade the proposed assessment criteria based on expert opinion.

• The Journal of Korea Assosiation for Disability and Oral Health
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.59-64
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• 2018

This study proposed a registered dentist model for the disabled based on consumer in-depth interview and supplier survey. This study proposed that dental clinics in the community take role as registered dentists for the disabled. Qualification screening and facility prerequisites are required to be selected as the registered dentists for the disabled and patients of the registered dentists were restricted to the disabled who can cooperate to dental treatment services with or without the aid of physical bondage. In order to encourage the participation in the program, subsidies for the registered dentists were necessary. Also, this study proposed financial supports for the medical expenses for patients at the same level as the current dental care center for the disabled. The registered dentist program for the disabled meets the needs of disabled consumers, such as accessibility of medical institutions, expertise of medical staff, and ongoing treatments with familiar medical staff. The registered dentist program for the disabled is expected to provide prevention and ongoing management for oral health promotion of disabled people and it also contribute to lower economic burden of oral health care of the disabled.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.212-218
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• 2022

This study aims to understand health care consumer's information searching behavior according to their presence of chronic diseases. For this purpose, 240 patients' data of university hospital located in Seoul were collected by surveys from 9 February to 11 February 2016. For statistical analysis, we used SPSS Ver. 26.0. The main results of this study are as follows: First, Chi-square test showed that chronic patients used expert information sources and experiential information sources more than those without chronic diseases. Second, chronic patients were found to search nutrition management, exercise management, and patient case. Lastly, in the case of hospital-related searches, patients with chronic diseases searched more waiting time and medical expenses than those without chronic diseases. The significance of this study is to provide basic data for efficient information provision and establishment of marketing strategies reflecting information needs of health care consumers.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.143-164
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• 2010

Although word-of-mouth (WOM) has been regarded as one of the very important topics in consumer research, its effects on other aspects of consumer behavior have been scarcely investigated in the context of health-care service industry. The WOM literature also suggests that it is essential for medical care service organizations in fierce competition to adopt WOM communication as a competitive weapon so as to be able to stay ahead of competition. The goal of this research was set to empirically study various relationships between antecedent variables, WOM acceptance, and purchase of medical care services. Specifically, drawing on the WOM literature, eight antecedents to WOM acceptance were selected first. Based on the relevant literature, seven sets of hypotheses on the relationships among antecedents to WOM, WOM acceptance, purchase intention and purchase of medical services were developed. Data were collected via an on-line survey. A total of 571 out of 600 responses turned out to be usable. The major findings of this study can be summarized as follows: First, 6 out of 8 antecedent variables to WOM acceptance were found to be positively affect WOM acceptance. However, the effects of (1) "newness of technology" pertaining to medical care service characteristics and (2) "involvement in health", one of receiver characteristics, were found to be insignificant. Second, most moderating effects on the relationship between purchase and purchase intention of medical care services were found to be insignificant with one exception. That is, elapse of time was found to be a marginally significant moderator on the relationship between purchase and purchase intention of medical care services. Third, it was found that the higher the WOM acceptance, the higher the purchase intention of medical care services. Finally, the effect of WOM acceptance was found to be particularly strong when WOM contents were perceived as useful and positive. Overall, it seems essential for hospitals to actively adopt WOM communication as a competitive marketing tool if they plan to improve their business performance. In this respect, the current study may serve to improve the business performance of hospitals by way of providing theoretical and empirical evidence on the effects of WOM communication variables on WOM acceptance and medical care service purchase.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.376-385
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• 2014

This study is aimed to ascertain the hospital information inquired by medical consumers and to propose the consumer-oriented marketing direction of the medical institutions. In the pursuit of this purpose, we examined about the purpose of the hospital information usage by medical consumers, the contents of the inquired information, the method of the information acquisition and the practicability of the acquired information. As the result of this study, more than 90% out of the purposes of hospital information usage is for the practical use of the medical institution, especially, 58.7% is for the effective selection of the medical institutions when consumer's family or relatives are sick. Regardless of the purpose of hospital information usage, for the contents of the inquired information, more than 50% responded with the medical institution facility, the specific contents about the professional field and the special field. The most favorite method to acquire the information according to the purpose of hospital information usage is through 'Acquaintance' which are the highest rate, more than 50% and the level of 24~28% are through 'Internet'. And the practicability of the acquired information was fairly low like the result as 4.8% for the selection of the medical institutions when consumer's family or relatives are sick and 0.5% for the health counseling or the medical check-up.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.243-257
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• 2013

This study was conducted in order to survey in healthcare worker's recognition of diagnosis related group(below; DRG) effect from July 1, 2012, to examine their recognition, expectation of the DRG system, and to provide the basic data necessary for the enforcement of the settlement. The subjects of this study were workers at clinics and hospitals sampled from hospital with DRG applying 7 diseases in Busan and Kyung-nam. A questionnaire of survey was conducted with the subjects working at clinics and hospitals from July, 25, 2012 to September 7, 2012, and the subjects were limited to doctors, officers, nurses, medical technicians and nurse assistants, and a total of 618 subjects were enrolled in this study. In the result of this study, generally, the healthcare workers recognized the DRG system. But their knowledge about that was not clear. Expanding enforcement DRG system at the present time, to provide accurate information to the healthcare consumer, workers need to know about DRG system clearly. To this end, for national health policy and medical institutions, workers should be educated constantly about providing medical service as well as the duty of enough explanation about the healthcare consumer's right to know.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.1-14
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• 2019

Objectives: This study was conducted to analyze the effect of hospital social responsibility(HSR) activities on organizational health and customer orientation. Methods: We conducted an online survey with hospital employees and analyzed the questionnaires of 206 selected respondents. A regression analysis was performed to determine the relationship between independent and dependent variables. Results: First, 'consumer issues', 'community involvement and development', and 'fair operating practice' factors in HSR influenced 'medical environment suitability' in organizational health. The 'fair operating practice' factor in HSR affected 'management environment suitability' and 'community orientation' in organizational health. The 'labor practices' factor in HSR affected 'practices suitability' and 'vitality' in organizational health. Second, the activities on 'consumer issues' and 'environment' in HSR have influenced 'Reliability', 'Reactivity' and 'Tangibility' in Customer Orientation. The activities on 'consumer issues' have affected 'Empathy'. Conclusions: The results of this study provide a positive direction for medical institutions as they conduct HSR activities and provide a basis for establishing effective HSR strategies.