• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.254-260
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• 2014

Background: The purpose of this study is to assume appropriate outpatient consultation time for each clinical department on the basis of measured outpatient consultation time and satisfaction of outpatient. Methods: We surveyed the feeling and satisfactory outpatient consultation time, satisfaction, revisiting intention and recommendation to others to 1,105 patients of single general hospital in Gyeonggi-do and measured their real outpatient consultation time from October 28 to November 27 in 2013. On the basis of satisfaction, we estimated appropriate outpatient consultation time through area under the receiver operating characteristic curve in logistic regression model. Results: Feeling outpatient consultation time was 5.1 minutess, satisfactory outpatient consultation time which was suggested by patient was 6.3 minutes, and real outpatient consultation time was 4.2 minutes. Department which had longest real outpatient consultation time was infection (7 minutes) and department which had longest satisfactory outpatient consultation time was neurology (9.4 minutes). From the univariate and the multiple linear regression analysis, real outpatient consultation time was longer in pulmonology patient, new patient and afternoon patient, satisfactory outpatient consultation time was longer in infection, neurology, neuropsychiatry, neurosurgery, and rehabilitation patient. Appropriate real outpatient consultation time was suggested as 5.6 minutes which differentiated high and low satisfied patient group. However, we could not assume appropriate outpatient consultation time for each clinical department because the number of patient who had bad satisfaction was too low. Conclusion: To improve patient's satisfaction, we hope outpatient reservation system is operated as each patient's outpatient consultation time is at least 5.6 minutes.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.21-34
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• 2003

Patient revisit to used hospital is a key factor in determining a health care organization's competitive advantage and survival. This article examines the relationship between customer's satisfaction and his/her revisit associated with three different methods which are the Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detection(CHAID) for segmenting the outpatient group, logistic regression and neural networks for addressing the outpatient's revisit. The main findings indicate that the important factors on outpatient's revisit are physician's kindness, nurse's skill, overall level of satisfaction, hospital reputation, recommendation, level of diagnoses and outpatient's age. Among these ones, physician's kindness is the most important factor as guidelines for decision of their revisit. The decision maker of hospital should select the strategy containing the variable amount of the level of revisit and size of outpatient's group under the constraint on the hospital's time, budget and manpower given. Finally, this study shows that neural networks, as non-parametric technique, appear to more correctly predict revisit than does logistic regression as a parametric estimation technique.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.56-67
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• 2021

Background: Regular doctor visits are vital for hypertension patients, especially for who have never received hypertension medication or non-pharmacologic therapy. This study purposed to study factors affecting outpatient visits for patients diagnosed with hypertension. Methods: This study included 59,009 respondents with hypertension over 30 from 2019 Community Health Survey data. Outpatient visits were defined by having hypertension treatments such as medication or non-pharmacologic therapy. Logistic regression was used to examine the factors affecting outpatient visits using SAS ver. 9.3. Results: 57,081(96.73%) patients with hypertension were identified as those having a outpatient visit for hypertension treatments, whereas 1,928(3.27%) patients did not have visits. Patient's characteristics such as gender, age, periods of hypertension, education level, perception of the blood pressure, hypertension management education, place of living, body mass index, depression and diabetes were found to have statistically significant relationship with the outpatient visits. Practical Implications: There is a need to select patients with high blood pressure who are unlikely to visit for hypertension treatments based on the study results. For those, establishing a personalized management plan such as health education and counseling programs will be helpful for the successful implementation of national chronic disease management program.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.19-34
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• 2013

Background: The study describes the changes resulted from imposition on tertiary hospital outpatient coinsurance rate rise policy and in tertiary or general hospital drug coverage rise policy on healthcare service utilization. Methods: Accordingly, the hypothesis about outpatient healthcare utilization after rise policy in outpatient coinsurance rate and drug coverage was established, using interrupted time-series analysis and segmented regression analysis to test the hypothesis. 5-year analysis period (2007. 3-2012. 3) from the outset year was designated, the data about most common 10 high-ranking of the main diseases targeting visiting patient from age of 6 to 64 were collected. Results: The summary on the major research is followed. First, the medical expense and duration of treatment tends to be increased in case of imposition about rise policy in outpatient coinsurance rate in the tertiary hospital under the interrupted time-series analysis. It showed temporary increase and slow down on account of influenza A even after the policy enforcement. In segmented regression analysis, duration of visit and medical expense in the tertiary hospital increased temporally right after the policy implementation and the decreased rapidly depends on period. Both rise and fall is statistically significant. The second, In case of tertiary or general hospital outpatient drug coverage rise policy, all of the tertiary hospital healthcare service utilization variables by the interrupted time-series analysis, drug coverage policy in the general hospital deeply declined according to decreasing trend before policy implementation. The third, in case of segmented regression analysis, the visit duration and medical expense statistically declined right after the policy implementation in both the tertiary and general hospital. Meanwhile, administration day was statistically meaningful only for the decrease right after the policy implementation. Otherwise, general hospital changes are not statistically meaningful. And the medicine cost was statistically, meaningfully decreased after the increase in drug coverage. Conclusion: Finally, the result demonstrated according to the analysis is only 1 hypothesis is denied, the other 2 are partially supported. Then, tertiary hospital outpatient coinsurance rate increase policy comparatively makes decrease effect on long-term healthcare utilization, and tertiary or general hospital outpatient drug coverage policy showed partially short-term effect is assured.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.31-45
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• 2008

Purpose: The purposes of this study were: (a) to identify role definition, tasks, and duties of the nurses who work in outpatient department (OPD), (b) to do Development a Curriculum(DACUM) chart, and (c) to compare duties and tasks among nurses, nurse's assistants, and doctors. Method: The DACUM committee was organized with 10 nurses who worked in OPD. The committee derived the duties and tasks of OPD nurses from what they had done at workplace. Validity of the derived duties and tasks was tested by 23 nurses at 15 university hospitals. Results: Eleven kinds of duties were identified: preparation for outpatient's medical examination; support for outpatient's medical examination; management of outpatients; outpatient education; outpatient counseling; special examination of outpatient; OPD administration; management of OPD supplies; management of facilities and environments of OPD; management of OPD personnel, and self-improvement. Ninety-two tasks were classified. Conclusion: The abilities for education and emergency care of OPD nurses should be empowered. The results of this study would not only contribute to the effective OPD nursing care, but also be useful as basic data in hospital management.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.247-255
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• 2017

Background: South Korea has experienced problems with excessive pharmaceutical expenditures. In 2010, the South Korean government introduced an outpatient prescription incentive program to effectively manage pharmaceutical expenditures. Therefore, we examined the relationship between the outpatient prescription incentive program and pharmaceutical expenditures. Methods: We used data from the Korean National Health Insurance claims database, which included medical claims filed for 22,732 clinics from 2011-2014 to evaluate associated pharmaceutical expenditures. We performed multiple regression analysis and Poisson regression analysis using generalized estimating equation models to examine the associations between outpatient prescription incentives and the outcome variables. Results: The data used in this study consisted of 123,392 cases from 22,372 clinics (average 5.4 periods follow-up). Clinics that had received outpatient prescription incentives in the last period had better cost saving and Outpatient Prescribing Costliness Index (OPCI) (received: proportion of cost saving, ${\beta}=6.8179$; p-value < 0.0001; OPCI, ${\beta}=-0.0227$; p-value < 0.0001; reference = non-received). Moreover, these clinics had higher risk in the provision of outpatient prescription incentive (relative risk, 2.772; 95% confidence interval, 2.720 to 2.824). The associations were higher in clinics that had separate prescribing and dispensing programs, or had professional staff. Conclusion: The introduction of an outpatient prescription incentive program for clinics effectively managed problems with rapid increases of pharmaceutical expenditures in South Korea. However, the pharmaceutical expenditures still increased in spite of the positive impact of the outpatient prescription incentive program. Therefore, healthcare professionals and health policy makers should develop more effective alternatives (i.e., for clinics without separate prescribing and dispensing programs) based on our results.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.207-216
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• 2021

Background: Good patient experience is positively associated with adherence to treatment recommendations, better clinical effectiveness, and health outcomes. This study aims to find out the key factors affecting positive patient experience to improve the quality of care using nationally representative survey data. Methods: The data was collected from the 6th National Health Nutrition Survey in 2015. Four patient experience items were investigated for patients with visiting outpatient care over the past year. Positive patient experience was defined as a case of responding always or usually yes. The t-test, chi-square test, and multiple logistic regression were performed to determine the key factors affecting the outpatient experience. Results: More than 80% of the respondents reported their care experience as positive excluding doctor spending enough time during the consultation. Male, poor health status, and single/divorced, and the longer time interval between outpatient care visit and survey were found to be significantly correlated with negative care experiences in the multiple logistic regression. Patients who received outpatient care at the oriental medicine clinic had a positive experience compared to those received outpatient care at the general hospital. However, patient factors including age, income, job, and insurance type had no significant association with patient experience. Conclusion: Health care providers should prioritize patients who report negative patient experiences and implement management decisions to improve the patient experience.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.139-151
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• 2012

This paper introduces an Internet-based generic simulator for outpatient clinics, named PIOS (Postech Internet-based Outpatient Simulator). Unlike other simulation tools, PIOS is operated on the Internet, is straightforward to use for outpatient process analysis, and is open to public via http://logistics.postech.ac.kr/pios with free of charge. Therefore, non-simulation expert users such as hospital administrators and managers can easily access to PIOS and conduct simulation study by themselves. In this paper, we describe the main components and programming logic of PIOS, and demonstrate its validity by comparing the output results of PIOS and a commercial software package.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.30-38
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• 2017

Background: This study aims to analyze the behavioral changes of healthcare providers and influencing factors after the reviewer unification of auto insurance medical benefit claims by an independent review agency. Methods: The comparison data were collected from the second half of 2013 and the same period of 2014. The key indicators are the number of admission days, the number of outpatient visits, inpatient ratio, inpatient medical expenses, and outpatient medical expenses. Results: Four indicators (number of admission days, number of outpatient visits, inpatient ratio, and outpatient medical expenses) showed statistically significant drops, while one indicator (inpatient medical expenses) showed no significant change. Conclusion: The reviewer unification of auto insurance medical benefit claims by an independent review agency showed significant reduction in cost and patient days.

• Journal of Korean Academic Society of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2012

Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of the outpatient clinics in a hospital, using DEA. Methods: Data were collected using an activity-based costing system, medical information system, and annual reports of customer satisfaction management team of a general hospital in a city. The input variables were the number of doctors, the number of nurses, and the number of staffs. The output variables were the number of treatment times, the number of outpatient clinic patients, the total profits from outpatient clinic, the patient's satisfaction score, and the number of re-visit appointments. EMS Window version 3.1 was used to measure the efficiency score and benchmarking analysis. Results: The average efficiency score of 24 outpatient clinics was about 82.01%. Thirteen outpatient clinics had 100% efficiency score among them. The lowest efficiency score was 57.56%. Conclusion: According to these results, we found that, generally, outpatient clinics were operated very efficiently. However, some outpatient clinics had low efficiency and they needed specialized outcome improvement strategies. To increase the efficiency of inefficient outpatient clinics, we will recommend using results of DEA, as a benchmark point of the most efficient outpatient clinics.