• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.49-60
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• 2008

This study investigated the Oriental medicine knowledge and educational requirement of medical staff working in Oriental-Western collaborative medicine hospitals(except for Oriental and Western medicine doctors) based on the recognition that not only mutual understanding and cooperation between Oriental and Western medicine doctors but also the knowledge of Oriental medicine of medical support staff such as nurses, medical technologists, pharmacists and administrative staff are very important to promote Oriental-Western collaborative medical treatment. The study results are summarized as follows : First, it was found that the ratio of nurses who took Oriental medicine education was much higher than those of other groups. They took Oriental medicine education in the types of school curriculum (27.0%) and special lectures in workplace(20.4%). Second, many of the people who took Oriental medicine education were found to be not satisfied with the education in general - 32.7% of them answered the education content was "so so" and 48.4% of them answered "unsatisfactory." Third, the general necessity of Oriental medicine education was found to be an average of 3.60 out of 5, and the number was higher "after employment"(average=3.85) than "before employment"(average=3.04). Fourth, the study found that Oriental-Western collaborative medicine hospital staff are well aware of the necessity of the knowledge of Oriental medicine in the cases of communications between different occupational types, consultations with patients or their guardians, treatment and nursing and the establishment of the practice of specialized Oriental medicine institutes. Fifth, the levels of Oriental medicine knowledge showed a difference in average value according to the role range(p<0.000), and it was found that there is an interaction effect between occupation type and role range(p<0.015).

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.117-134
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• 2006

Korean health care system introduced the reform for separation between prescribing and dispensing of drugs (SPD reform) in the latter part of the year 2000. The objective of this paper is to look at what change this reform has brought about in the financial situation of Korean public health insurance scheme, particularly in terms of insurance benefit outlay. Since the inception of the reform is a development of more than five years ago, its impact on the finance situation would now start to become apparent. Hypothesis is set in this study for each of three components of drug reimbursement in health insurance, i.e. average price level, composition of drugs and their overall volume. In terms of the classification of health care services by mode of production, the impact of the SPD reform is confined mainly to the last two among three drug reimbursement fields including inpatient department, out-patient department and pharmacy. Pure impact of the SPD reform was estimated to be more or less than 1.7 trillion won, 13.1% of the total outlay of the Nation Health Insurance in 2001, and more than 2.0 trillion won, 14.9% of the total outlay of the Nation Health Insurance in 2003. Both dispensing fees for the pharmacists, which had been newly introduced on occasion of the SPD reform, and larger share of expensive drugs in the medicines prescribed by doctors were confirmed to be main drivers of the augmentation of drug reimbursement.

• Journal of Korean Medical classics
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.181-198
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• 2014

Objectives : This study was to analyze definitions of herbal medicinal preparations, crude drug preparations, and new drugs from natural products in the relevant laws and regulations, understand the related problems, and propose directions for improvement. Methods : I analyzed the legal definitions in respect of herbal medicinal preparations, crude drug preparations, and new drugs from natural products in relevant laws and regulations since 1945, explained the problems, and suggested the solution-considering the academic stance of Traditional Korean Medicine and the dualistic medical and pharmaceutical system. Results : Regarding the current laws and regulations that are relevant to herbal medicinal preparations, we should 1) clarify the boundaries between the duty of physicians and that of pharmacists, 2) limit the principles of Korean Medicine as well as the contents of the related textbooks, 3) find a way to protect the intellectual property rights for herbal medicinal preparations, and 4) establish a separate standard for drug classification regarding herbal medicinal preparations. In case of crude drug preparations, we should 1) clarify the meaning and limitations of the phrase, "the point of view of Western medicine," and 2) establish a classification standard for drugs that are used in Korean Medicine and clarify the boundaries between herbal drug preparations and crude drug preparations. Furthermore, laws and regulations apropos of new drugs from natural products do not actually fit the concept of "new drug," and due to subordinate laws, a supplement to a new drug submission is contradictorily misclassified as a new drug from natural products. Conclusions : The problems of legal definitions of herbal medicinal preparations, crude drug preparations, and new drugs from natural products have emerged in the process of giving approval to drugs that are made of herbs and natural products under the dualistic medical and pharmaceutical System. Laws and regulations that differentiate the process of approving herbs that are used in Korean Medicine and the others should be established.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.283-287
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• 2008

Drug identification service and other drug-related query service are becoming increasingly important in hospital pharmacy. The goal of this research was to investigate current situation of the service in hospital pharmacy, which recently implemented the services as part of provision of advanced hospital pharmacy service in order to assure national health improvement. We investigated the report performed from November 2006 through April 2007 in a university hospital located in Daegu, Korea. Number of drug identification service performed was 81 cases during the first three months period (period I), but it increased to 222 cases during the second three months period (period II), which suggested that the service was welcomed by medical staff in the hospital. Time to process each case was about 30 minutes in the period I while it was only 16 minutes in the period II. Proportion of the unidentifiable cases remained at about 25% during the entire period, which suggests that the system for the identification task appears to have some limitations such as unsatisfactory support from the Korea Pharmaceutical Association, laws, and regulations. A vast majority of drug-related queries were mostly from physicians (60.5%) followed by nurses and pharmacists. Time to process each drug-related query was 10.6 minutes in the period I while it was 6.9 minutes in the period II. Queries answered immediately were about 70% of all queries in the period I, but increased to about 85% in the period II.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.219-225
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• 2013

The Korean pharmacy education has introduced new curriculum since 2011. In the new curriculum, pharmacy students have been provided strenthen experimental education and clinical pharmacy has been more important than previous curriculum. Thus, faculties in the college of pharmacy should prepare the circumstances correlated with the changed curriculum. To accomplish successful setting, all faculty and practice experts must work together and need financial assisstant from the college. However, there are many different obstacles among 35 colleges of pharmacy in Korea. In order to narrow a gap among students and find the way to overcome it together, we studied the problem of preparation process in Korean colleges of Pharmacy. We studied the process of practical education in college of pharmacy by means of self-reporting questionnaire from November 29th 2012 to December 31th 2012. The questionaire comprised of syllabus related to clinical pharmacy, the number of professor in charge of clinical pharmacy or pharmacotherapeutics, the plan of securing faculties in the field of clinical pharmacy, the budget, site, instrument for preparing experimental education, the lesson time number of experimental education, MOU, education and treatment of preceptor in the practice site and committee of experimental education in the college. Total 21 of 35 colleges participated in this survey. They showed different composition of syllabus, budget, the circumstances of experimental education, the education and treatment of preceptor. Most colleges are unclear the site and preceptor of experimental education and they did not contract the MOU with the sites. 9 of 21 also did not have the committee of experimental education in the colleges. From 2013, some colleges of pharmacy start actual experimental education. Inadequete preparation and different quality of education can make student incomplete pharmacists, so it will be negative effect on public health. To overcome challenge and obtain desirable goal, funding/administrative assistant from the college and networking within 35 colleges of pharmacy are needed.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.69-73
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• 2013

Background: An increasing trend of cytotoxic drug use, mainly in cancer treatment, has increased the occupational exposure among the nurses. This study aimed to assess the change of nurses' safety-related knowledge as well as attitude levels and subsequently to assess the change of cytotoxic drug handling practices in wards after a series of pharmacist-based interventions. Materials and Methods: This prospective interventional study with a before and after design requested a single group of 96 nurses in 15 wards actively providing chemotherapy to answer a self-administered questionnaire. A performance checklist was then used to determine the compliance of all these wards with the recommended safety measures. The first and second assessments took 2 months respectively with a 9-month intervention period. Pharmacist-based interventions included a series of technical, educational and administrative support measures consisting of the initiation of closed-system cytotoxic drug reconstitution (CDR) services, courses, training workshops and guideline updates. Results: The mean age of nurses was $32.2{\pm}6.19$ years. Most of them were female (93.8%) and married (72.9%). The mean knowledge score of nurses was significantly increased from $45.5{\pm}10.52$ to $73.4{\pm}8.88$ out of 100 (p<0.001) at the end of the second assessment. Overall, the mean practice score among the wards was improved from $7.6{\pm}5.51$ to $15.3{\pm}2.55$ out of 20 (p<0.001). Conclusions: The pharmacist-based interventions improved the knowledge, attitude and safe practices of nurses in cytotoxic drug handling. Further assessment may help to confirm the sustainability of the improved practices.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.120-130
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• 2009

The objective of this study was to analyze and to improve therapeutic drug monitoring(TDM) service of vancomycin in a local hospital. Patients with TDM service between September 2005 and December 2008 were included and the data were collected for vancomycin use and components of TDM. During that period, 421 cases of TDM service of vancomycin in 236 patients were retrospectively reviewed. The first dosages of vancomycin were appropriate in 135(57.2%) patients and administration of vancomycin was discontinued in 126(53.4%) patients due to therapeutic failure or adverse drug reaction. MRSA was identified in 191(80.9%) patients and 135(70.7%) samples for the identification were sputum. According to the TDM reports, 232(55.1%) serum samples were obtained at the steady-state conditions and 55.5% of the samples that were drawn before the steady-state was due to the physician's inappropriate knowledge about the steady-state. Based on the time of vancomycin administration, 35.8% of the samples were not obtained at the recommended sampling time. For the patients in general wards, the most common reason for the incorrect samples was routine serum sampling by the laboratory medicine phlebotomists between 6 and 8 a.m. except sunday. In contrast, samples drawn by nurses or physicians at inappropriate time were the most common reason for the incorrect samples with patients in the intensive care units. Physicians accepted 68.5% of the recommendations for vancomycin dosage and administration. In conclusion, TDM service of vancomycin needs to be improved in inappropriate sampling time and vancomycin dosage. For solving these problems, current team made of TDM pharmacists and physicians of laboratory medicine can be expanded to include a physician of infectious diseases, nurses and laboratory medicine phlebotomists as new members. Through the TDM service of vancomycin by the new team, we can settle the problems and make the guideline for the scientific controversies associated with therapeutic monitoring of vancomycin.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.213-220
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• 2010

Therapeutic duplication (TD) is a serious problem that frequently occurring primarily in the ambulatory setting in Korea. Implementation of concurrent drug utilization review (DUR) is a promising way to reduce inappropriate prescription and dispensing, and improve patient safety. This study was aimed to develop the process of DUR module of TD. Sixty-five drug ingredients classified into the drug category of the antipyretic, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory drug approved in Korea (The KFDA-dess nated classification codes of 114 or 264) were reviewed for this purpose. The drug ingredients (and products) were reclassified based on WHO's Anatomical, Therapeutic and Chemical (ATC) classification system. The clinical practice guidelines, textbooks and product labels on therapeutic uses of these drugs in Korea and several fores n countries were reviewed. If the drugs were categorized into the same therapeutically duplicable class, they were defined not to be used concurrently because the concurrent use was "therapeutically duplicated (unnecessary or even harmful)". Among the studied drug products, the following 5 drug classes were considto beas "therapeutic duplication": (1), on-t tooid DURnti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, including s Dicylates), (2),Anilidts, (3),Opioids, (4) Ergot Dk Doids and (5) 5-$HT_1$ receptor agonot s. Therefore, concurrent prescribing or dispensing of more than 2 drug ingredients any in the above same classes should be considered as TD and needed to be warrant for careful review by pharmacists before dispensing.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.324-329
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• 2016

Background: With the development of information and communication technology, there is a growing number of people looking for health information on the internet. This pilot study was performed to analyze the pattern of pharmacist consultation on the internet portal site. Methods: Questions and answers posted on the portal site "Naver Jisik-iN" from March 1st to 31th in 2016 were collected. Medications asked were categorized into prescription drugs, nonprescription drugs, sanitary aids, emergency drugs, functional health foods, and others. Medications were subcategorized into 14 according to the anatomical therapeutic chemical classification system. Questions were divided into 10 categories based on Hepler's drug-related problems. Results: Of the 955 cases, females accounted for 59.5% and inquirers from 11 to 40 years old, 89.4%. The number of prescription drugs, nonprescription drugs, sanitary aids, emergency drugs, functional health foods, and others were 428 (44.8%), 328 (34.3%), 31 (3.3%), 2 (0.2%), 122 (12.8%), and 44 (4.6%), respectively. Questions for drugs acting on alimentary tract and metabolism took up 27.4% followed by those on nervous system, 13.6% and anti-infectives for systemic use, 12.2%. Pharmacist consultation regarding drug information, drug interaction, and adverse reaction occupied 47.9%, 15.2%, and 12.3%, respectively. Conclusion: Health counseling through online is predicted to increase steadily, so pharmacists should broaden their boundaries beyond off-line pharmacies to meet social needs.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.24-36
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• 2002

The purpose of this paper is to find the factors affecting the number of patients per physician for a day at hospital and compare them with the results of previous studies. We used data of Korean national patients survey that had been carried out by central government and local health centers from October 27th to November 11th in 1999. Descriptive analyses were performed to overview the general characteristics of our study subject. Also, we tried to find the factors affecting the number of patients per physician for a day at hospital through t test and correlation analysis. Factors affecting the number of outpatients per physician for a day at hospital are location, training type, ownership, No. of physicians, No. of beds per physician, No. of physicists per physician, No. of nursing aids per physician and No. of medical technicians per physician. While factors affecting the number of inpatients per physician for a day at hospital are location, ownership, No. of physicians, No. of beds per physician, No. of pharmacists per physician, No. of nurses per physician, No. of nursing aids per physician and No. of administrative auxiliary personnels per physician. The most correlated variable with outpatients per physician for a day at hospital is No. of medical technicians per physician while the most correlated variable with inpatients per physician for a day at hospital is No. of beds per physician. A more detailed investigation is needed for verifying factors affecting the number of patients per physician for a day at hospital and other medical institutions.