• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.33-40
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• 2015

This study is aimed at exploring the direction and characteristics of Japanese medical facility improvement in each area, a move to strengthen local medical services. Also, this study is intended to establish implications for Korea, which has similar social conditions as Japan's. Based on the findings, Japanese medical facility improvement has the following characteristics. First, as for medical service supply system, the linkage between facilities was being strengthened. The purpose is to share the functions and roles of limited medical facilities. It allows patients to receive complete medical services in one area. Second, local public health facilities were consolidated to boost their management efficiency and to improvement their original functions. Third, local medical facility roles were divided into different levels. The purpose is to treat patients more efficiently depending on their diseases. In other words, the cooperative medical system was strengthened by dividing the roles of medical facilities. It is aimed at treating each patient more systematically depending on their conditions in line with the treatment stage. The findings suggest the following for Korea. In order to supply and maintain stable medical services regionally in line with social changes, functional issues of medical facilities should be tackled consistently and systematically.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.103-133
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• 2008

The purpose of this article is to find out consumers' behavior styles in using of medical services and their perceptions of medical services. To that end, methodologies used include SERVQUAL and a part of HBM model. SERVQUAL is consumer's content dimensions about some service and HBM is a Model of health beliefs. In particular, the purpose is to find out how their perceptions about two dimensions of HBM(perceived benefits, perceived barriers) influence their satisfaction and medical service usage. As a result, it reveals that 4 dimensions of SERVQUAL influence significantly to the perceived benefits in medical service. Our finding might have strategic implications needed for hospitals by consumers of medical services.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.175-188
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to confirm the reasons why the medical institutes avoid the traffic accident victims covered by the automobile insurance. For this purpose, a university hospital was sampled to comparatively analyze days of hospitalization, average medical cost per day, ratio of optional medical cost, average cost by injury/age group/department, distribution of MRI photographing, etc., between health insurance and automobile insurance patients. Accordingly, in order to assure automobile patients of a reasonable rights of medical services, it is deemed necessary to arrange a fair system encouraging them reduce the days of their hospitalization as well as a complementary mechanism preventing unnecessary expensive medical services due to the hazard.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.139-151
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• 2007

This paper evaluated the benefits of the National Health Insurance(NHI) and suggested the necessity of extending some oriental medical services into the benefits schedule in the NHI. Comparing the rate of public financing in national health expenditure in OECD countries and measuring out-of-pocket payments in total medical cost showed the level of insurance payments to total medical cost is approximately $50%{\sim}60%$ in Korea, which is quite insufficient to pay household medical expenses, although the NHI covers the whole population. A few of consumers' priority surveys for medical needs suggested herb medicine, muscle treatment, and manufactured herb medicine be included in the list of the NHI benefits, based on efficiency and equity criteria. It was estimated that the NHI can afford to cover these three items of oriental medical services.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.19-45
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• 1997

This study was performed to evaluate the appropriateness of resource allocation based on the ranking of health center function. Through the Delphi processes, health center functions were ranked in order of importance as follows; planning and research, followed by health education, health promotion, management of chronic diseases, health screening tests, welfare activities, mental health services, medical personnel management, medical services, prevention of communicable diseases, maternal and infant health services, housekeeping, management of oral hygiene, nutrition services, surveillance for community health services, family planning, and administration of the health center. In relation to the above priorities, the allocation of manpower was not appropriate. Even though the expert groups emphasized on functions such as planning and research, health education, and health promotion, they inputted more personnel for administration of a health center, maternal and infant health services, and medical services which were evaluated with lower importance. The budget allocation showed the same trends as the above. Although the functions such as planning and research, health education, and health promotion, and management of chronic diseases were evaluated highly, the budget was allocated accordingo to the the results of the former fiscal year rather than on the importance of function. However the budget for nutrition services, surveillance for the community health services, family planning, and administration of a health center was allocated according to priority. Based upon the above findings, community health center should be given the opportunity to make their own ranking of health center function and to allocate their resources including personnel and budget in order to improve the responsibilities and roles of the community health center.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.24 no.4 s.36
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• pp.485-495
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• 1991

This study examined the effects of referral requirements for insurance patients which have been enforced since July 1, 1989 when medical insurance coverage was extended to the whole population except beneficiaries of medical assistance program. The requirements are mainly aimed at discouraging the use of tertiary care hospitals by imposing restrictions on the patient's choice of a medical service facility. The expectation is that such change in the pattern of medical care utilization would produce several desirable effects including increased efficiency in patient care and balanced development of various types of medical service facilities. In this study, these effects were assessed by the change in the number of out-patient visits and bed-days per illness episode and the share of each type of facility in the volume of services and the amount of expenditures after the implementation of the new referral system. The data for analysis were obtained from the claims to the insurance for government and school employees. The sample was drawn from the claims for the patients treated during the first six months of 1989, prior to the enforcement of referral requirements, and those of the patients treated during the first six months of 1990, after the enforcement. The 1989 sample included 299,824 claims (3.6% of total) and the 1990 sample included 332,131 (3.7% of total). The data were processed to make the unit of analysis an illness episode instead of an insurance claim. The facilities and types of care utilized for a given illness episode are defined to make up the pathway of medical care utilization. This pathway was conceived of as a Markov Chain process for further analysis. The conclusion emerged from the analysis is that the enforcement of referral requirements resulted in less use of tertiary care hospitals, and thereby decreased the volume of services and the amount of insurance expenses per illness episode. However, there are a few points that have to be taken into account in relation to the conclusion. The new referral system is likely to increase the use of medical services not covered by insurance, so that its impact on national health expenditures would be different from that on insurance expenditures. The extension of insurance coverage must have inereased patient load for all types of medical service organizations, and this increase may be partly responsible for producing the effects attributed to the new referral system. For example, excessive patient load for tertiary care hospitals may lead to the transfer of their patients to other types of facilities. Another point is that the data for this study correspond to very early phase of the new system. But both patients and medical care providers would adapt themselves to the new system to avoid or overcome its disadvantages for them, so as that its effects could change over time. Therefore, it is still necessary to closely monitor the impact of the referral requirements.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 1999

The purposes of this study which was conducted by studying the literature on Emergency Medical Dispatch System are to provide some developmental policies of quality management, pre-arrival instructions, priority dispatch protocols, training program for the dispatchers(Emergency Medical Dispatchers or EMDs) in Korea and to promote understanding emergency medical dispatching. The conclusions from this summarized as follows; (1) It is confirmed that there has been little study on the Emergency Medical Dispatch System in Korea, because for the first time, the real Emergency Medical Services were introduced into Korea in 1994, and the importance of the Emergency Medical Dispatch System has not been realized. (2) Only some squads are using a set of dispatch protocols, others aren't. (3) In spite of trying to introduce a new set of dispatch protocols, it isn't the priority dispatch system using a complete set of dispatch protocols which has key questions, pre-arrival instructions, mode & configuration based on patient assessment. (4) The EMS is unable to promote the service capacity by using quality management, because there is no medical control on the emergency medical dispatching and the EMDs. (5) There are no medical directors in the communications center who are in charge of the medical control to detect problems derived from the EMS and to solve them. (6) There are no systematic training program for the EMDs who are taking charge of dispatching. (7) Having a deep relation to the elements of the EMS, the emergency medical dispatching is subject to restriction of those elements.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.27-37
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• 2014

Objectives: This study aims to identify the factors associated with regular medical services utilization of chronic disease patients. Methods: The research selected 4,489 adults aged over 30, diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, hypercholesterolemia, from the Korea health panel. We analyzed states of regular medical service utilization using descriptive statistics. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the main factors associated with regular medical services utilization in chronic disease patients. Results: In terms of socio-demographic factors, gender, age, marital status, education level, employment, household income and disability were significantly different between hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and hypercholesterolemia. Among health status and behavioral factors, number of chronic diseases, subjective health status, smoking, high risk drinking, regular meals, physical activity, obesity were significantly different. From the multiple logistic regression analysis, age, number of chronic diseases, obesity, type of chronic diseases were associated with regular medical services utilization. Conclusions: It is necessary to develop effective health education programs and individualized approach to improve continuous management in chronic diseases patients.