• Health Policy and Management
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.48-65
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• 2003

Detailed analyses of total health expenditure and its sub­categories are essential for the evidence­based health policy(EBHP). These analyses, again, should be based on timely and reliable data that are comparable across countries. The System of Health Accounts (SHA), published by the OECD in 2000, provides an integrated system of comprehensive and internationally comparable accounts. The author has implemented the SHA manual into Korean situation, and examined overall expenditure estimate and its basic functional breakdown following the manual. This study explains how pharmaceutical expenditure is estimated. The results are, then, analyzed particularly from the international perspective. Both administrative data in Statistical Yearbooks (National Health Insurance, Medical Aid, Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance) and survey data on Health and Nutrition are used for the estimation. Per capita pharmaceutical expenditure in Korea (183 US$ PPPs) was far less than the OECD average (308 US$ PPPs) in 2001, but pharmaceutical expenditure share in total health expenditure (20.3％) was higher than the average (16.7％). This can be explained by the fact that there is a statistically significant correlation between pharmaceutical expenditure share and per capita GDP of each country. Korean people follow the tendency of relatively low­income countries to spend less than OECD average for health care, but follow again their tendency to spend more on drugs than on other health care services. In consideration of results and analysis as above, per capita pharmaceutical expenditure in Korea is expected to grow in the future, but the growth rate of the pharmaceutical expenditure is expected to be less than that of overall health expenditure.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.62-70
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• 2024

Background: Drug-related problems have the potential to threaten patient health, and pharmacists are in a position to prevent such problems through prescription reviews and patient counseling, actively engaging in pharmaceutical care activities. This study aims to categorize and analyze the intervention activities of pharmacists in community pharmacies concerning drug-related problems, following international criteria. Methods: Over a six-month period, prescription interventions completed in a community pharmacy in Seoul were selected as the research subjects. The causes of interventions were classified according to the Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe (PCNE) drug-related problems (DRPs) classification system and the types and frequencies of DRPs were identified. Results: Among a total of 49,334 prescriptions, 527 interventions were completed, constituting approximately 1.07% of the daily average filled prescriptions. Individuals over 60 years of age represented more than 50%. The primary cause of DRPs was prescribing and drug selection issues, comprising 256 cases (48.58%), with specific subcategories including 109 cases of drug selection, 79 cases of treatment duration errors, 47 cases of dose selection, and 21 cases of inappropriate dosage form selection. Patient-related issues accounted for 204 cases (38.71%). Conclusion: The study demonstrated that the pharmacists' intervention in community pharmacies contributes to the safe use of medication by patients.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.23-35
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• 1983

Since the national health insurance was introduced in 1978, the increased utilization of hospitals and the growing importance of pharmaceutical services to hospital patients have made the administration of these services a very complex and specialized responsibility. The pharmaceutical services has always been an essential component of comtemporary hospital care. In the hospital, the pharmaceutical services is the professional department which concerns itself with the evaluation, selection, control and utilization of drugs. The director of this service must be a versatile professional person who can work effectively in a heterogenous society of educated persons. However, graduate education in hospital pharmacy has not been introduced yet in Korea. The necessity of graduate education hospital pharmacy has been discussed in this research. Graduate education in hospital pharmacy emphasizes preparation for assumption of responsibility as the senior hospital pharmacist or the director of pharmaceutical services. Graduates should also be prepared as administrators of a department that must operate with great efficiency. They should be prepared serve as a consultant on drugs for the medical and allied health professional staff, organizing and disseminating a large and dynamic body of information in their interest and to establish professional roles that emphasize procurement, storage, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, control and evaluation of drugs. Senior hospital pharmacist is a teacher charged with responsibility fer formal and informal instruction of other hospital personnel in pharmaceutical sciences. In addition, the graduates have the opportunity to be a researcher dealing with aspect of hospital care and are intensively educated in the professional aspects of hospital pharmacy practices. The curriculum of graduate education in hospital pharmacy should be established detailly and carefully to fit the educational objective.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.58-77
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• 2004

Cost containment has become high political issues since financial crisis of the Korean Health Insurance fund in 2000. Korean Government has developed and implemented several measures to reduce the pharmaceutical expenditures. Pharmaceutical economic evaluation can be a tool in decision to allocate scare resource efficiently. In order to increase the quality of economic evaluation for pharmaceuticals, the Korean Health Insurance Review Agency(HIRA) is considering the development of a guideline for economic evaluation. It mandates that pharmaceutical companies could submit the result of an economic evaluation when demanding reimbursement of new pharmaceutical drugs. The purpose of this study is to provide a critical review of the economic evaluations of health care technologies published in the Korean context whether they have been performed according to current guidelines and therefore whether their results are directly useful for decision making. We found there exist important problems and deviation from, good practice' both in the general features of the studies, like the study design and perspective, and in terms of cost measurement and valuation. There are needs to develop clear guidelines and to educate and train researchers in performing economic evaluations.

• 한국임상약학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1994.11a
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• pp.3-37
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• 1994

• 한국임상약학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.07a
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• pp.17-19
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• 2004

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.110-127
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• 2008

Expenditures on pharmaceuticals of different concepts were estimated and their functional, financing and providers' breakdowns were examined in line with the OECD's System of Health Accounts (SHA) manual. This study also shows the way such estimates are made. The results are then analyzed particularly from the international perspective. Data from both Household Survey by the National Statistical Office and the National Health and Nutritional Survey by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Korea were used to estimate pharmaceutical expenditures that. are financed by out-of-pocket payments of the household, while national health insurance data etc. were used for estimation of pharmaceutical expenditures that are financed by public funding sources. The 'per capita expenditure on pharmaceutical/medical non-durables' in Korea stood at 380 US$ PPPs, less than the OECD average of 443 US$ PPPs in 2006, but its share of the per capita health expenditure of 25.9% noticeably outnumbered the OECD average of 17.1%, due partly to low per capita health expenditure as a denominator of the ratio. This indicates that Koreans tend to spend less on health care than an OECD average, while tending to spend more on pharmaceuticals than on other health care services, much like the pattern found in relatively low income countries. An international pharmaceuticals pricing mechanism is most likely responsible for such a tendency. In addition, it is to be noted that the percentage comes down to 21.0%, when expenditures on both medical non-durables and herbal medicine, which is locally quite popular among the elderly, have been excluded.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.3-36
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• 2022

In order to solve the pharmaceutical kickback problem, it is needed to establish legal system that allow ways to enable pharmaceutical promotion of medicines without kickbacks as well as provide sanction those who commit illegal act. Before the National Assembly and the government focused on strengthening sanctions. As a result, in 2014, a system of suspending medical care benefits was introduced, which could inflict heavy losses on pharmaceutical companies by withdrawing target medicines from the market. However, three years after the introduction, the system was abolished in 2018, recognizing the problem that the disposition could infringe on the patients' right to access to and choice of medicines. In 2021, the National Assembly made it possible for dispositions suspending medical care benefits regarding the third violation, which remained symbolic until then, replaced with administrative fines. Although the legislator's reflective stance on the system is more than clear, the Ministry of Health and Welfare still interprets that the old law should be applied to kickbacks for the period of the law. Moreover, regarding the substitution of fines at the discretion of the Minister of Health and Welfare under the old law, the narrow standards taken under the old law seems to be maintained. In this paper, firstly pharmaceutical kickback issue, the main reason for the introduction of the system, will be explained, after that the history of introduction and abolition of the system examined and last but not least the unconstitutionality of the system and the illegality of the disposition are to be examined.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.360-368
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• 2018

Background: The proportion of pharmaceutical expenditure out of total health-care expenditure in South Korea is high. In 2016, 25.7% of national health insurance (NHI) spending was for pharmaceuticals. Given the increasing demands for the access to newly introduced medicines and following increase in pharmaceutical spending, the management of NHI pharmaceutical expenditure is becoming more difficult. Methods: This study analyzed the data claimed to NHI for pharmaceutical reimbursement from 2010 to 2016. Results: The policy implications with respect to the trends and problems in spending by drug groups were elicited. First, the proportion of off-patent drugs spending which were treated to chronic disease was much higher than anti-cancer drug spending. Second, the spending to the newly introduced high-costed medicine increased, however, current price-reduction mechanism was not sufficient to manage their expenditure efficiently. Conclusion: Our system seems to need several revisions to improve the efficiency of pharmaceutical expenditure and to cope with high-costed medicines. This study suggested that the prices of off-patent drugs need to be regularly readjusted and the Price-Volume Agreement System should be operated more flexibly as well.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.291-297
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• 2016

Background: The current educational goals and missions of pharmacy schools in Korea were analyzed to examine the current orientation and future direction of pharmaceutical education. Methods: Educational mission statements were obtained from the homepages of 35 pharmacy schools and subjected to convert into codes. Themes and categories were induced using qualitative content-analysis from the codes and compared according to location of school (capital area versus province), public versus private, and date of initial enrollment (before versus in 2011). The themes and categories were compared with "the eight-star pharmacist" suggested by World Health Organization (WHO) and International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP). Results: Twelve themes, 44 categories, and 496 codes were identified. Themes included pharmaceutical expertise, professionalism, contribution to society, basic educational ideology, sphere of activity, leadership, research, dealing with future change, problem-solving ability, self-management and development, cooperation, and respect for life. Mission statements of schools that initially enrolled in 2011 cited humankind level contribution (p=0.011), patient-centered care (p=0.026), and globalization (p=0.018) more frequently than those enrolled before 2011. Most schools mentioned about care-giver, researcher, and decision-maker which were stated in "the eight-star pharmacist". Conclusion: To meet the growing social requirements of a pharmacist's roles, wide-ranging active discussion on establishing educational goals should be made.