• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2005

An ideal trauma care system would include all the components identified with optimal trauma care, such as prevention, access, acute hospital care, rehabilitation, and research activities. Central to an ideal system is a large resource-rich trauma center. The need for resources is primarily based on the concept of being able to provide immediate medical care for unlimited numbers of injured patients at any time. Optimal resources at such a trauma center would include inhouse board-certified emergency medicine physicians, general surgeons, anesthesiologists, neurosurgeons, and orthopedic surgeons. Other board-certified specialists would be available, within a short time frame, to all patients who require their expertise. This center would require a certain volume of injured patients to be admitted each year, and these patients would include the most severely injured patients within the system. Additionally, certain injuries that are infrequently seen would be concentrated in this special center to ensure that these patients could be properly treated and studied, providing the opportunity to improve the care of these patients. These research activities are necessary to enhance our knowledge of the care of the injured. Basic science research in areas such as shock, brain edema, organ failure, and rehabilitation would also be present in the ideal center. This trauma center would have an integrated concurrent performance improvement program to ensure optimal care and continuous improvement in care. This center would not only be responsible for assessing care delivered within its trauma program, but for helping to organize the assessment of care within the entire trauma system. This ideal trauma center would serve as a total resource for all organizations dealing with the injured patient in the regional area.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.112-129
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• 1996

Background : A small number of high cost patients usually spend a larger proportion of scarce health resources. Aged, long-term care and readmitted patients usually belong to these high cost patient group. Among others, long length of stay and readmission can be reduced by checking its cause, and these are the areas needed most of quality improvement activity. Characteristics of high cost medical users between health insurance program and medical assistance program were reviewed. Methods : The inpatient claims of health insurance and medical assistance program were analyzed. Patients were divided by 6 groups; long-term, mid-term, short-term, readmitted, cancer and aged. We defined high cost patients as those who had spent one and half million won and over per 6 months. Characteristics of high cost patients for each group were reviewed. Results : medical assistance patients used much more resources than the insured members in the average hospital cost per case but less in daily hospital cost. The former had a longer length of stay and had much heavier diseases. Major diseases of both group were cancer, diseases of circulatory system and chronic degenerative diseases. Gallstone and schizophrenia were more in the insured program. However, pulmonary tuberculosis, asthma were more common among the medical assistance patients. Early readmission before 2 weeks were 28-30% of the total readmission. Readmission rate in the malignat neoplasm and renal failure were 80% and more. Q.A program should be installed to prevent unnecessary readmissions. Conclusion : Almost 30% of early readmissions and admissions due to complications and long length of stay should be reviewed carefully to keep cost down and to enhance the quality of hospital care.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.75-80
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• 2018

Background: The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of conducting a clinical study of using acupuncture for chronic pain in patients with osteoporotic thoracolumbar vertebral compression fractures (VCFs) in the outpatient setting. Methods: A prospective case-series attempting to recruit 20 participants was performed from February 11, 2016, to December 31, 2016. We provided Manual and electrical acupuncture was provided one 1 to three 3 times a week, for 6 weeks, up to 18 sessions. The primary clinical outcome was the average pain intensity as measured by the visual analog scale (VAS) at 6 weeks. Secondary outcomes included back-specific dysfunction (Oswestry disability index), quality of life (quality of life questionnaire-26), patient-reported improvement, use of other healthcare resources, and adverse events at 6 weeks. Use of healthcare resources and adverse events were additionally followed-up at 12 weeks by telephone. Results: Of 33 patients screened, a total of 7 were enrolled in the study. Manual and electrical acupuncture was provided 1 to 3 times a week, for 6 weeks, up to 18 sessions. We observed reduced pain intensity at 6 weeks in all participants. The change in the quality of life and back-specific dysfunction was inconsistent among participants. Mild, temporary adverse events were observed in three patients. Conclusion: In our clinical setting, it was not feasible to recruit sufficient participants and to assess the efficacy of acupuncture for chronic pain after osteoporotic thoracolumbar VCFs under a year. Strategies to improve recruitment and to identify barriers to participation are required for future clinical trials.

• The Korean Journal of Rehabilitation Nursing
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.43-54
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• 2016

Purpose: This study attempted to understand patients' and nurses' perspectives on the priority of rehabilitation nursing services using Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). Methods: This study used descriptive research design. Data were collected from 121 patients and 144 nurses using self-reported questionnaires. Statistical analysis included an independent t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and IPA conducted using SPSS/WIN 21.0 version. Results: There were no statistical differences between the patients' and nurses' mean scores on perceptions of the importance (t=-0.83, p=.409) and performance (t=-0.32, p=.751) of rehabilitation nursing services. The IPA matrix showed a difference between patients and nurses in terms of their perceived priority of nursing services. Regarding the perception of patients, "helping a patient to continue to practice bedside physiotherapy and occupational therapy", "providing information on the proper care agency and community resources", and "providing education for the prevention of complications" fell in the "concetrate here" area (2nd quadrant). Conclusion: The results showed that the priorities of patients and nurses did not match in terms of some of the rehabilitation nursing services. Thus, rehabilitation nursing services need to be provided based on the patients' needs. Allocation of resources for the service items that fell in the "concentrate here" area of the IPA need be reconsidered for the quality in nursing care.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.458-464
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• 2005

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of gamma irradiation for the reduction of an egg allergy in a cake with the irradiated egg white. A white layer cake was manufactured including 10- or 20-kGy-irradiated egg white. Enzyme-Iinked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) with immunoglobulin (Ig) E from egg-allergic patient and with rabbit anti-ovalbumin (OVA) IgG were used to identify and quantify native OVA in the samples. Concentrations of native OVA detected by IgE and IgG in the control were $432.88{\mu}g/g$ sanple and $375.46{\mu}g/g$ sample, respectively. However, native OVA in white layer cake prepared with 10- and 20-kGy-irradiated egg white were detected at low concentrations detected by IgE to 14.27 and $8.78{\mu}g/g$ sample, respectively. Whereas, IgG recognized OVA more often in 10- and 20-kGy samples than in control. The result appear to suggest that irradiating egg white might reduce ie allergenicity by the conformational change of OVA. Therefore, gamma irradiation could utilize reduce an egg allergy.

• The Journal of the Korean dental association
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• v.58 no.7
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• pp.404-411
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• 2020

This study reports the unusual complications of 22-year-old male who presented with sudden hearing loss after the right mandibular third molar extraction under local anesthesia with 3.6 ml of 2 % lidocaine. Total 8.75 mg of oral dexamethasone for 1 week immediately after extraction was prescribed in department of oral and maxillofacial surgery but hearing did not improve after 1 week. As referral to otolaryngology, total 600 mg of oral methylon and hyperbaric oxygen therapies were operated for 2 weeks. The hearing of patient was improved at 6 weeks after extraction but tinnitus was persisted even after 12 months. The reason and treatment were discussed with literature review, searching with the keywords ['hearing loss' AND ('dental' OR 'tooth extraction'OR'teeth extraction')] in PubMed and Google scholar at October 2019. Total five cases were reported after tooth extraction with local anesthesia. The sudden hearing loss could be associated with local anesthesia containing vasoconstrictors. Early steroid (extensive medication and intra-tympanic injection) and hyperbaric oxygen therapies were recommended within 2 weeks. As a proper treatment, hearing could be improved but other additional symptoms, such as tinnitus, dizziness, might be remained.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.14
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• pp.6067-6071
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• 2015

Background: Gastric cancer accounts for about 8% of the total cancer cases and 10% of total cancer deaths worldwide. It is the second lethal cancer after esophageal cancer and is considered the fourth most common cancer in north and northwest Iran. The bcl2 family has a key role in the regulation of apoptosis and change in its expression can contribute to cancer. This study initially scheduled to determine the expression of bcl2 gene in tissue samples of adenocarcinoma cancer patients. Materials and Methods: A total of 10 samples of gastric adenocarcinoma and 10 of normal tissues from Sari hospital were selected and after DNA extraction from tissues, bcl2 gene expression assayed by real-time PCR. Results: Our results demonstrated higher expression of the bcl2 gene in control compared with cancer and marginal cancer tissues. Conclusions: On one hand BCL2 plays an important role as an oncogene to inhibit apoptosis; on the other hand, it can initiate cell cycle arrest at G0 stage. Our observed association between its expression and patient survival is quite conflicting and may be tissue-specific. The data suggest expression both tumoural and non-tumoral(marginal) groups have lowered expression than controls (P>0.05). Due to the low number of samples we could not examine the relationship with clinicopathological features. However, bcl-2 expression may be important for prognostic outcome or a useful target for therapeutic intervention.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.203-215
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• 2015

Objectives: This study was performed to investigate the relationship between the incidence of national notifiable infectious diseases (NNIDs) and meteorological factors, air pollution levels, and hospital resources in Korea. Methods: We collected and stored 660 000 pieces of publicly available data associated with infectious diseases from public data portals and the Diseases Web Statistics System of Korea. We analyzed correlations between the monthly incidence of these diseases and monthly average temperatures and monthly average relative humidity, as well as vaccination rates, number of hospitals, and number of hospital beds by district in Seoul. Results: Of the 34 NNIDs, malaria showed the most significant correlation with temperature (r=0.949, p<0.01) and concentration of nitrogen dioxide (r=-0.884, p<0.01). We also found a strong correlation between the incidence of NNIDs and the number of hospital beds in 25 districts in Seoul (r=0.606, p<0.01). In particular, Geumcheon-gu was found to have the lowest incidence rate of NNIDs and the highest number of hospital beds per patient. Conclusions: In this study, we conducted a correlational analysis of public data from Korean government portals that can be used as parameters to forecast the spread of outbreaks.

• Korean Journal of Hospice Care
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.1-16
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• 2002

Hospice can not only help the dying persons to maintain the high quality of life and facing the death in comfortable and peaceful state, but also the bereaved family to relieve the grief and sufferings. We investigated the work of hospice performed by church base from March 2000 until recently and reported the results dividing them into three parts. 1)The application of resources in church to administration, education, nursing delivery of hospice in the aspects of management. 2)Spiritual and postmortal management relating hospice nursing and funeral in hospice practice. 3)Case report of hospice and the patients situation(5 in average a month). The expected effects of hospice practice using the resources in church are as follows. 1)Hospice practice can provide the highly qualified persons with the opportunities to do voluntary services and find their lives worth living. Consequently hospice contributes to the spreading of the volunteering culture. 2)The volunteers in hospice can grow mature spiritually and get interpersonal relationships among the volunteers. Doyle. D., Geoflrey.W.C., & Macdonald. N.(1988). Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine(2nd ed). New York :Oxford University Press. Woodruff. R.(1996). Palliative Medicine(2nd ed). Melburn: Asperula Pty Ltd. 3)Through the hospice activity, church can practice and show the moral. 4)The volunteers in hospice can make a organization with a hope to be a beautiful community in church. 5)The patients and their families can enjoy the high quality of life through the holistic care provided by 33 nursing practical items of hospice. 6)'Hospice newsletter' can be a useful vehicle to provide readers with hope and encouragement through the stories of the patient and the volunteers. The persons unaware of the hospice can be contacted with hospice by this 'Hospice newsletter'. 7)Irrespective of the economic status, all patients are served equally that hospice can contribute to dying with dignity and the equality of human being.

• Journal of Clinical Nutrition
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.31-37
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• 2018

Recently, in Korea, the importance of preparation and use of injectable drugs has been emphasized due to successive fatal accidents caused by injection infections. Parenteral nutrition (PN) has also been identified as a cause of infection. Cases of infection due to PN have been reported not only in Korea, but also abroad, and contamination occurs mainly during the preparation of PN. Because sterile preparation and compounding of injections are very important for infection control and patient safety, this article reviews the major guidelines outlined thus far. The Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in 2006 published guidelines and the KSHP (Korean Society of Health-System Pharmacists) recently issued guidelines for the aseptic preparation of injections. In addition, as US guidelines, the ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) guidelines and United States Pharmacopeia (USP) <797> are also reviewed. The recent guidelines published by the KSHP have significance in that they were adopted in accordance with the domestic reality, even though they conform to foreign guidelines, and are expected to be guidelines for hospital pharmacists performing aseptic preparation work. In addition, the Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare is considering appropriate guidelines for the safe management of medications, training staff for infection prevention and strengthening staff capacity. Furthermore, the gradual expansion of aseptic compounding facilities and human resources, as well as the provision of adequate medical costs are also considered. Based on the establishment and standardization of injectable drugs compounding guidelines for Korean hospitals, it is believed that if human resources and facilities are supported and medical charges are improved, it will be possible to expect the safer preparation and use of injections.