• Health Policy and Management
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.50-67
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• 2000

This study aims to estimate the consumption of antibiotics in Korea and to suggest the further studies. To measure the amount of antibiotics consumption, we referred to the statistic of NFHI(National Federation of Health Insurance) and a private institute of pharmaceutical information(Korea Intercontinental Medical Statistics; IMS Korea). There were 1,563 antibiotics produced in Korea in 1997. The total amount of antibiotics production was 1,197 billion won in 1997. Antibiotics accounted for 17.6% of the total pharmaceutical productions in 1997. Cephalosporins have taken the largest part of antibiotics production since 1992. The estimation using NFHI data showed that the total expenditure of antibiotics used in health facilities was 268 billion won, 608 billion won, 911 billion won in 1990, 1994, 1997 respectively. Tertiary hospitals spent 246 billion won, general hospitals 287 billion won, hospitals 78 billion won, clinics 300 billion won in 1997. The amount of expenditure and the intensity of antibiotics consumption in hospitals have increased more steeply than any other health facilities. The total expenditure of antibiotics consumption in health facilities and pharmacies was 778 billion won when estimated using the data from IMS Korea, and 999 billion won from NFHI. Cephalosporins was the fast growing antibiotics group in all of the market- hospitals, clinics, pharmacies since 1991. To measure the amount and patterns of antibiotics consumption more precisely, a pharmaceutical monitoring or surveillance system is needed.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.054-074
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• 2023

With the advent of the '4th Industrial Revolution', digitalization using AI (Artificial Intelligence), big data, IoT (Internet of Things), cloud computing and mobile is accelerating across all industries and global companies have fundamentally reorganized customer experiences, business models, and operations centering on digital transformation. Business innovation drives productivity improvement, process simplification, price, competitiveness and sustainable expansion. Whether digital transformation will be necessary for the current industrial environment is no longer important, and how quickly companies achieve digitalization has emerged as the utmost crucial element in industrial continuity. As non-face-to-face and remote technologies have begun in earnest, and accelerated in the pharmaceutical industry. They are looking for ways to provide value, generate profits, improve efficiency, and sustain the future. Compared to other industries, the pharmaceutical-related sectors have shown high interest in digital transformation especially to reduce costs and meet the challenge of delivering products during the pandemic environment.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.189-223
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• 2018

This paper examined the effect of innovation networks comprising research and development (R&D) collaboration on innovation performance of Korean pharmaceutical firms. As co-assigned patents and co-affiliated publications are common technical outcomes of successful R&D collaboration in the pharmaceutical industry, social network analysis technique was applied for analyzing innovation networks through patent and publication data. Results of Social network analysis indicated that a small set of highly innovative firms in the Korean pharmaceutical industry were actively involved in patenting and publishing. And the analysis of structural equation model found the followings: (1) R&D intensity significantly affected patenting, publication and new drug development, (2) the activity of patenting and publishing was positively related with the innovation performance measured by new drug development, and (3) R&D collaboration in terms of degree centrality of co-patent network played significant moderating roles on the relationships among R&D intensity, patenting, and new drug development. These findings are expected to be helpful to researchers as well as policy-makers to devise innovation-promoting policies in the Korean pharmaceutical industry. Discussions and limitations of the study are provided in the last part.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1270-1277
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• 2011

Since the pharmaceutical industry is a research oriented sector, the research and development capability based on the qualified R&D manpower is one of the key success factors to strengthen the national competitiveness. Securing the appropriate number of researcher needed for the research activities in these fields is an important precondition for a government policy that aims for a strongly knowledge-intensive the pharmaceutical industry growth. In this study, we conducted and analyzed a delphi survey of the experts(the principal investigators) with expertise in these pharmaceutical research areas. The current and future requirements for the pharmaceutical science research personnel including medical doctors have been evaluated, extending the year 2017. The results of this study can be summarized as follows; First, in 2007 the field of pharmaceutical R&D personnel is currently under-supplied as many as about 5,600 people. The rate of under-supplied is about 18.1%. Second, in 2017 the evaluation shows that the R&D personnel in this field will be more severely under-supplied as many as 13,500 people. The rate of under-supplied will be about 28.6%. As a result, the confrontation of demand and supply evaluation shows that, in general, severe shortages of R&D manpower in the field of pharmaceutical will result if there are not adequate manpower policy adjustment.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.186-194
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• 2017

Objectives: A significant concern has been raised about the emerging resistance that is largely caused by the excessive or inappropriate use of antibacterial agents for viral respiratory infections. This study investigated the trend of respiratory tract infections (RTIs) and the use of antibiotics. Methods: Utilizing the national level health insurance claims data from 2005 to 2008, we examined encounter days, antibiotic use, and the prescription rate for respiratory tract infections including upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs), lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs), and otitis media in outpatient settings. The antibiotic use was measured as defined daily dose per 1,000 patients per day (DDD/1,000 patients/day). Results: The visit for URTI increased from 141,693,465 in 2005 to 120,717,966 in 2008 and the visit for LRTI decreased from 61,778,718 to 66,930,122. For RTIs, prescription rates of antibiotics decreased from 65.2% to 58.5% for URTIs and 76.9% to 68.3% for LRTIs from 2005 to 2008. The antibiotic use decreased to 20.85 DDD/1,000 patients/day after a significant increase of 22.01 DDD/1,000 patients/day in 2006. Among antibiotics, J01CR had the highest use- 7.93 DDD/1,000 patients/day followed by J01DC of 3.71 DDD/1,000 patients/day and J01FA of 3.2 DDD/1,000 patients/day. One notable trend is that J01FA presented a continuous increase in antibiotic use from 2.3 in 2005 to 3.26 DDD/1,000 patients/day in 2008. Conclusion: The use of antibiotics had poor compliance to guidelines for RTIs. Despite decrease in the use of antibiotics, prescription rates for URTIs were still about 50% indicating that the delayed prescribing antibiotics (or wait-and-see) were not observed.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.188-195
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• 2013

Background: The separation of pharmaceutical prescription and dispensing law was implemented in July 1st of 2000. This law was initiated by government without a through consensus among related stakeholders in the process of policy decision, eventually raising contention about decision making process rather than the performance of the policy. Methods: Therefore, this study tries to identify the accomplishment of the policy goals; based on the last decade's research we assessed inhibition of unnecessary prescription, drug misuse and overuse prevention, prevention of drug-related sentinel events, reducing unnecessary drug utilization, and reducing nation's medical cost. Results: Assessment results represent that government-suggested goal of the policy lacks sufficient evidence to evaluate accomplishment. Conclusion: Unlike other studies that evaluate problems regarding drug dispensing policy in the policy decision process, this study is meaningful in that it evaluated the policy goal based on the last ten years of related study results.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.358-377
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• 2023

During the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions. For these policy interventions to be effective, authorities engaged in the political discourse of legitimising their activity to generate positive public attitudes. To understand effective COVID-19 policy, this study investigates public attitudes in South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States and how they reflect different legitimisation of policy intervention. We adopt a big data approach to analyse public attitudes, drawing from public comments posted on Twitter during selected periods. We collect the number of tweets related to COVID-19 policy intervention and conduct a sentiment analysis using a deep learning method. Public attitudes and sentiments in the three countries show different patterns according to how policy interventions were implemented. Overall concern about policy intervention is higher in South Korea than in the other two countries. However, public sentiments in all three countries tend to improve following implementation of policy intervention. The findings suggest that governments can achieve policy effectiveness when consistent and transparent communication take place during the initial period of the pandemic. This study contributes to the existing literature by applying big data analysis to explain which policies engender positive public attitudes.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.249-262
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• 2011

Since May 1st in 2008, the products of ginkgo biloba extract have had to be used with the patient's out-of-pocket payment due to reimbursement restriction guidelines. This study aims to analyze the policy effects of reimbursement restriction on pharmaceutical expenditures using interrupted time series(ITS) analysis. We retrieved monthly NHI claims data for the period between May, 2005 and December 2009. The ingredients identified as a substitute for ginkgo biloba have similar indications based on the similar pharmacological activities. The effects of changes in reimbursement scope were evaluated both for all relevant pharmaceuticals within the same therapeutic class and for 2 separate groups : ginkgo biloba's and its substitutes. According to the study results, restrictions on reimbursement scope resulted in savings of the drug expenditures in the targeted therapeutic class. Direct restriction on ginkgo biloba was associated with a decrease in expenditure level by 60.1% and changes in trend from an average increase rate of 1.4% to an average decrease rate of 1.5% for the therapeutic class, with a dramatic decrease in expenditure level(-191.5%) for ginkgo biloba itself, but with an increased expenditure level(+50.1%) and changes in trend from an average increase rate of 2.0% to an average decrease rate of 1.0% for the substitute group. Further policy to restrict nicergoline was associated with additional decrease in expenditure level for the therapeutic class. Additionally, we could identify the balloon effect - a new policy squeezing one part results in bulging out elsewhere. After the restriction of ginkgo biloba, the utilization of and expenditures on its substitutes increased significantly. In conclusion, we demonstrated that consecutively introduced policies effectively reduced overall expenditures on the therapeutic class of interest. Some ingredients played as a substitute while others did not. Further studies need to be conducted to identify which factors determine a substitute.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.239-243
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• 2013

Salmonella Enteritidis is responsible for causing foodborne diseases upon consumption of egg products. While cases of S. Enteritidis isolation from eggs have been reported in other countries, no such cases have previously been reported in Korea. In this study, we report the first isolation and identification of S. Enteritidis from domestically distributed eggs in Korea. Eggs were collected from eight countrywide grocery stores during different seasons between 2011 and 2012. Egg contents and washing solution of egg shells were incubated in buffered peptone water, and the enriched broth was further enriched in tetrathionate broth and Rappaport-Vassiliadis. The secondary enriched broth was streaked on xylose lysine desoxycholate agar. The suspected colonies were confirmed to S. Enteritidis by a biochemical test, serotyping, and PCR test. Genetic relatedness among the isolates was analyzed using Diversilab Salmonella kit. Three strains of S. Enteritidis were isolated from egg contents and egg shells collected from grocery stores of the Eumseong-city in the fall of 2011. All three stains showed resistance to chloramphenicol, streptomycin, nalidixic acid, and ampicillin by the disk diffusion method. In addition, the isolates showed more than 99% DNA homology, indicating that they were presumably identical strains. Therefore, there is a requirement to monitor and control against S. Enteritidis from eggs in Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.402-410
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• 2018

Background: Monitoring appropriate medication categories can provide early warning of certain disease outbreaks. This study aimed to present a methodology for selecting and monitoring medications relevant to the surveillance of acute respiratory tract infections, such as influenza. Methods: To estimate correlations between acute febrile respiratory tract infection and some medication categories, the cross-correlation coefficient (CCC) was used and established. Two databases were used: real-time prescription trend of antivirals, anti-inflammatory drugs, antibiotics using Drug Utilization Review Program between 2012 and 2015 and physicians' number of encounters with acute febrile respiratory tract infections such as influenza outbreaks using the national level health insurance claims data. The seasonality was also evaluated using the CCC. Results: After selecting six candidate diseases that require extensive monitoring, influenza with highly specific medical treatment according to the health insurance claims data and its medications were chosen as final candidates based on a data-driven approach. Antiviral medications and influenza were significantly correlated. Conclusion: An annual correlation was observed between influenza and antiviral medications, anti-inflammatory drugs. Suitable models should be established for syndromic surveillance of influenza.