• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.238-242
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• 2021

Through diversification of 4th industries and transportation and globalization, tourism was developed for medical purposes, not limited to touring tourist attractions. The trend of medical tourism in Korea is shifting from large and medium-sized hospitals to professional medical services in one area of small hospitals rather than professional medical services. However, small hospitals lack medical coordinators and interpretation services, and tourists who visit Korea for treatment lack information on small hospitals. Therefore, a platform is needed to match small hospitals with medical tourists. In this study, using Platform as a Service (Paas) in cloud computing, clinic administrators can access the app to introduce information about their hospitals with simple manipulations. Tourists also want to propose a customized platform to select the right area for them to check information about small-scale hospitals and choose the treatment and tourist attractions they wants. In this study, using Platform as a Service (Paas) in cloud computing, clinic administrators can access the app to introduce information about their hospitals with simple manipulations.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.32-42
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• 2016

This study is conducted to estimate economic ripple effects of subsidiary services of hospitals. Using the Input/Output Analysis, this study analyzes production inducement effect, added value inducement effect, and labor inducement effect. Also, it assesses potential economic effects of the subsidiary services of which the scope is expanded as the government's proposed in 2014. Data regarding hospital subsidiary services and economic effects are obtained from the hospitals' financial statements on the National Tax Services and the Bank of Korea. The major results of this study are summarized as follows; subsidiary service profits of hospitals are 466 billion won and rent profits of hospitals are 152 billion won. Of these, the rate of subsidiary service profits in tertiary hospitals is about 66% of total subsidiary service profits. Producement inducement effect of subsidiary services of hospitals is higher than that of total industry, service industry and medical service industry. Added value inducement effect of subsidiary services of hospitals is higher than that of total industry, manufacturing industry, service industry and medical service industry. Job position inducement effect of subsidiary service in hospitals is higher than that of total industry, service industry and medical service industry. Also, employment inducement effect of subsidiary service in hospitals is higher than that of total industry and medical service industry. The results may suggest that subsidiary services revenue in medical institutions contribute to improving operating profits. Facing with intense market competition and pressures to control health care costs, hospitals may need to determine whether subsidiary services help boost their profitability and improve customer satisfaction.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.151-159
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• 2009

Objectives : This study was to determine how the perception and the satisfaction of outpatients who utilized clinics and hospitals are structurally related with their willingness to utilize the same institution in the future. Methods : Three hundred and ten responses (via convenient sampling) were collected from 5 hospitals and 20 clinics located in Seoul listed in the "Korea National Hospital Directory 2005". Service quality was utilized as the satisfaction measurement tool. For analysis, we used a structural equation modeling method. Results : The determining factors for general satisfaction with medical services are as follows: medical staff, reasonability of payment, comfort and accessibility. Such results may involve increased competition in the medical market and increased demands for quality medical services, which drive the patients to visit hospitals on their own on the basis of changed determining factors for satisfaction. Conclusions : The structural equation model showed that the satisfaction of outpatients with the quality of medical services is influenced by a few sub-dimensional satisfaction factors. Among these sub-dimensional satisfaction factors, the satisfaction with medical staff and payment were determined to exert a significant effect on overall satisfaction with the quality of medical services. The structural relationship in which overall satisfaction perceived by patients significantly influences their willingness to use the same institution in the future was also verified.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.60-72
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• 2022

Objectives: This study aimed to analyze the Korean medical utilization and Korean medical expenses by characteristics of multicultural family members to investigate whether it affects Korean medical utilization. Methods: This study utilized The Korea Health Panel data in 2018, with 238 final participants. We performed a t-test and ANOVA on the difference between Korean medical utilization and Korean medical expenses according to Anderson's Model of Health Service Utilization variables. Logistic regression analysis and generalized linear model analysis were conducted to analyze Korean medical utilization factors. Results: The Korean Medical utilization was 12.61% among the multicultural family members. As a result of regression analysis, the female had high Korean medical utilization(p=.008), and rural area residents had low utilization(p=.017). Korean medical expenses were high when they were female or married. Including the utilization of western medical services by outpatients, Korean medical expenses were high when they were female or outpatients who received western medical services. Conclusions: As a result of this study, the factors influencing Korean medical utilization were gender and residence area. There were differences in Korean medical expenses depending on western medical services use or gender. Therefore, it is necessary to use these factors to expand the Korean Medical utilization by multicultural family members, and research of the Korean medical utilization by disease is needed.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.35-69
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• 1995

The managerial environment of hospitals in Korea characterized by low levels of medical insurance fees is worsening by increasing government regulations as to the utilization of medical services, rising costs of labor, material, and medical equipments, growing patient expectations concerning the quality of services, and escalating competitions among large hospitals in the market. Hospitals should seek for their survival strategies in this harsh environment and they should have information about costs of their products in doing so. However, it has not been available due to the complexity of the production process of hospital services. The objectives of this study were to develop a service-based cost accounting model and to apply the developed model to a study hospital to obtain cost information of hospital services. A model commonly used for the job-order product cost accounting in the manufacturing industry was modified for the use in hospitals in Korea. Actual costs, instead of standard costs, incurred to produce a unit of services during a given period of time were estimated in the model. Data required to implement the model included financial information, statistics for the allocation of supportive cost center costs to final cost centers, statistics for the allocation of final cost center costs to services, and the volume of each services charged to patients during a study period. The model was executed using data of a university teaching hospital located in Seoul for the fiscal year 1992. Data for financial information, allocation statistics fo supportive service costs, and the volume of services, most of them in electronic form, were available to the study. Data for allocation statistics of final cost center costs were collected in the study. There were 15 types of evaluation and management service, 2, 923 types of technical service, and 2, 608 types of drug and material service charged to patients in the study hospital during the fiscal year 1992. Labor costs of each of seven types of pesonnel, material costs of 611 types of drugs and materials, and depreciation costs of 212 types of medical equipments, miscellaneous costs, and indirect costs incurred in producing a unit of each services were estimated. Medical insurance fees for basic services such as evaluation and management of inpatients and outpatients, injection, and filling prescriptions, and for operating procedures were found to be set lower than costs. Infrequent services which use expensive medical equipments showed negative revenuse as well. On the other hand, fees for services not covered by the insurance such as CT, MRI and Sonogram, and for laboratory tests were higher than costs. This study has a significance in making it possible for a hospital to obtain cost information for all types of services which produced income based on all types of expenses incurred during a given period of time. This information can assist the management of a hospital in finding an effective cost reduction strategy, an efficient service-mix strategy under a given fee structure, and an optimum strategy for within-hospital resource allocations.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.20
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• pp.8765-8774
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• 2014

This study aimed at summarizing epidemiological research findings on associations between tobacco, alcohol and tea consumption and risk of gastric cancer (GC) in the Chinese population. The review searched PubMed, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and China Biology Medicine (CBM) databases and reference lists of review papers for all studies published in English or Chinese languages. Information extracted, via two independent researchers, from retrieved articles included first author, year of publication, study design, sample size, source of controls and adjusted odds ratio (OR) or relative risk (RR) with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for each category. Statistical analyses used software STATA version 12.0. The systematic search found 89 articles containing 25,821 GC cases and 135,298 non-cases. The overall random effects in terms of pooled OR and 95%CI for tobacco, alcohol and tea consumption were 1.62 (95%CI: 1.50-1.74), 1.57 (95%CI: 1.41-1.76) and 0.67 (95%CI: 0.59-0.76) respectively; while the heterogeneity among included studies ranged from 80.1% to 87.5%. The majority of subgroup analyses revealed consistent results with the overall analyses. All three behavioral factors showed statistically significant dose-dependent effects on GC (P<0.05). The study revealed that tobacco smoking and alcohol drinking were associated with over 1/2 added risk of GC, while tea drinking conferred about 1/3 lower risk of GC in the Chinese population. However, these results should be interpreted with caution given the fact that most of the included studies were based on a retrospective design and heterogeneity among studies was relatively high.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.815-817
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• 2014

According to a rapid development of medical technology and increasing requirements of the users on prevention and control of diseases, whole healthcare services are changing into user-oriented services. There are many attempts and studies on integrating users' medical information but it is so difficult to implement a true user-oriented medical services because carrying the information from each medical facility to the integrated medical information system involves many conflicts of interests and authentication problems. This paper presents integrated medical information system which provides real-time medical services, allowing the users to be a critical player who can receive the medical information they want from any medical facility on their mobile devices without any change in the form of documents in relation to those issued by that facility and give that information themselves to the system through the mobile devices.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.147-155
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• 2019

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the research trends of the articles published in the Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services in the past 10 years. Methods: A total of 236 articles published between 2009 and 2018 were analyzed. For analysis of the collected data, frequencies and percentages were calculated using SPSS 23 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA). Results: Most of the articles (47.9%, 113) were authored by 2 researchers, and most first authors were affiliated with university (81.4%, 192). Most of the articles were presented with 3 key words (34.3%, 81), and the most studied subjects of emergency medical technology was clinical researches (26.7%, 63). The majority of the research was performed quantitatively (99.6%, 235) and retrospectively (72.5%, 171), and research design was the most surveyed (68.2%, 161). For the majority of articles, the size of the sample was less than 100 (35.6%, 84), and the study participants were students (38.1%, 91). Only 12.7% (40) of the articles were reviewed by institutional review boards. Conclusion: In future studies on emergency medical technology, active participation of field emergency workers is needed. In addition, qualitative and prospective studies should be conducted on various types of research subjects.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.147-158
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• 2021

Purpose: This study was conducted as a direct investigation of the data in the dispatch logbooks and status of patient transportation provided by private emergency transport companies in Busan. Methods: This study was conducted using SPSS 23.0 version for a total of 1,000 processed records of private emergency ambulance services in Busan from September 23, 2017 to November 5, 2019. Results: First, 100% of the emergency patient transfers by private emergency ambulances were carried out between medical institutions; 76.4% of all transfer patients had emergency conditions, and 86.0% had serious diseases. Second, 59.3% of the emergency patients were located at distances less than 10 km and 43.2%, at more than 10 km from the medical institutions. Third, 63.5% of the passengers were accompanied by first-class emergency rescuers according to the severity of the condition. Fourth, 92.7% of the reasons for the selection of medical institutions were transferred to places where professional care was available, accounting for most of the reasons for the selection. Finally, the medical institutions were selected according to the severity of the patient's condition; 76.5% patients were transported to institutions with a large number of doctors, and 42.9% of those were transported to specialized care institutions. Conclusion: This study collected data from 1,000 dispatch records of private emergency transport companies in Busan; these records reflect the government's policies to improve the emergency patient transfer system. The current status of emergency patient transfer offered by private transport companies was analyzed. All of the emergency patient transfers were carried out between medical institutions, and 76% of the transferred patients had emergency conditions.

• Korean Medical Education Review
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.10-17
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• 2022

South Korea is not a wasteland of publicly funded health care-instead, it has a good medical social security system known as the national health insurance (NHI). The NHI of Korea has three unique features; (1) low premiums, low insurance fees, and low coverage; (2) obligatory designation of medical institutions; (3) and allowance of non-benefit services. These features have made hospitals and doctors interested in profit-seeking. However, the commercialization of medical institutions has taken place in both private- and public-established sectors. A basic problem of commercialization is the co-existence of the obligatory designation of medical institutions and non-benefit services. The problem became worse in the Kim Dae-Jung government because it officially permitted non-benefit services. Since 2000, the Korean government has consistently pursued benefit extension policies, but the coverage rates of the NHI have stagnated. In addition, premiums and current medical expenses have markedly increased because policy-makers have emphasized accessibility to the NHI, while ignoring important principles of medical social security such as a needs-based approach and patient-referral system. In order to resolve the commercialization problem, the obligatory designation of medical institutions to the NHI should be changed to a contract system, and non-benefit services should be prohibited at NHI institutions. We must re-establish the patient-referral system via a needs-based approach. We also need to build a primary healthcare system and public health policies. We should make a long-term plan for healthcare reform.