• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2019

The number of people with chronic diseases has been increasing steadily but the indicators for the management of chronic diseases have not improved significantly. To improve the existing chronic disease management system, a new policy will be introduced, which includes the establishment of care plans for hypertension and diabetes patients by primary care physicians and the provision of care coordination services based on these plans. Care coordination refers to a series of activities to assist patients and their families and it has been known to be effective in reducing medical costs and avoiding the unnecessary use of the hospital system by individuals. To offer well-coordinated and high-quality care services, it is necessary to develop a service quality assurance plan, track and manage patients, provide patient support, agree on patient referral and transition, and develop an effective information system. Local governance should be established for chronic disease management, and long-term plans and continuous quality improvement are necessary.

• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.133-141
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• 1999

Recently there are increasing concerns on quality improvement activities related to difficult economic situations, more competitive environment, health professional's emphasis on quality, and customer's needs in health care. The purpose of this study was to identify educational needs in the quality improvement for staff nurses. Study setting was an acute care hospital having more than 1000 bed in Seoul, Korea. The subjects were 40 staff nurses who participated in the first Quality Assurance(QA) inservice education. Data were collected by self-administered questionnaire which consisted of four parts : QA knowledge and attitude(ten items, by five Likert scale), contents of QA education(ten items, by setting the priority), evaluation of the program(structure, time allocation, place, educational method), and general characteristics of respondents (age, duration to work for hospitals etc.) The response rate was 85%(34/40), Most had positive perspective and attitude about QI/QA activities, but 9% had negative impression and knowledge about this activities. Also they'd like to know the plan of hospital-level QI/QA activities, QI/QA current practice, general hospital system, the role of QA specialist and so on. Consequently, for building the quality improvement activities that is customer-focused, coordinated, outcome-oriented, resource-efficient, collaborative in Korea, at first the education about philosophy, theory, and implementation process of QI/QA should be conducted, and then that on QI/QA terminology, quality indicators development, the analysis and presentation of quality-related data and so forth be followed.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.26-35
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• 1997

Background : Glycopeptide antibiotics are the only drugs for treatment of infections due to beta-lactam-resistant Gram-positive bacteria. As the incidence of infection and colonization with vancomycin-resistant enterococci(VRE) rapidly increases, the hospital infection control practices advisory committee(HICPAC) recommends prudent vancomycin use to detect, prevent and control infection and colonization with VRE. Methods : The inpatients admitted from September to December, 1996 in Pusan National University Hospital, with Gram-positive bacterial infections were evaluated retrospectively to see whether the administrations of glycopeptide antibiotics were appropriate or not, upon comparison with the recommendations for preventing the spread of vancomycin resistance by HICPAC. Results : Teicoplanin has been chosen more frequently than vancomycin of the glycopeptide antibiotics. The indications of administration of glycopeptides in patients with pneumonia, wound infections, sepsis, and in febrile or neutropenic patients with malignancies were appropriate, but the use of glycopeptides for elimination of merely colonized bacteria in the oral cavity could not be excluded. Inappropriate use of glycopeptides was 10.6%, and inappropriately long-term use without positive culture for beta-lactam-resistant Gram-positive organisms was about 40% of total days of drug use. Conclusion : It seems essential for the quality assurance committee to make a plan in teaching the HICPAC recommendations to the medical practitioners who prescribed the glycopeptides inappropriately or used for irrelevantly long to his patient, monitor and survey their use of glycopeptides prospectively and periodically, and if there are repeated inappropriate prescriptions, a certain penalty would be given to the practitioners.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.29 no.2 s.53
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• pp.279-294
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• 1996

This study was to evaluate hospital characteristics as composition of manpower and facilities to the death rate of patient; and to earmark the factors affecting the overall hospital mortality rates. The data utilized were derived from survey material conducted by the Korean Hospital Association on 32 tertiary referral hospitals in Korea between 1986 and 1994. The findings are : 1. Those hospitals having the most capacity per bed had little difference to the mortality rates than the others. 2. Those hospitals having the most daily patients per specialist had significantly higher mortality rates than the others, but the number of daily patients per nurse had little effect on the mortality rates. 3. Those hospitals which had a relatively sufficient number of quality assurance activities revealed a lower mortality, and particularly in case where such effort was directed to the clinicians, the outcome was remarkable. We concluded that the major factor affecting the hospital mortality rates seems to be the number of specialists per number of beds, the degree of quality assurance assessment of the clinicians, the quality assurance activities of each hospital as a whole, and the number of daily patient per specialist. According to the findings of this study, the composition and quality of specialist and adequate quality assurance activities seemed to be the essential for the improvement of hospital care. Therefore, in this regard e proper implementation of policy and support is highly recommended. Due to lack of available research material, the personal characteristics of specialists haven't been considered in this study. However, this longitudinal observation of 32 tertiary referral hospitals over a nine year period has significant merit alone.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.76-91
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• 1998

Background : The purpose of this study was to understand general attitudes of physicians toward hospital quality improvement activities who have been members of QA committee in 32 Korean university hospitals. Methods : A postal survey about opinions of hospital quality improvement activities and desirable policy directions was sent to 328 QA committee member physicians. The questionnaires were composed of 48 items. In total 152 physicians responded to this survey(response rate: 49.3%). This study was carried out from January to February 1996. Results : Most physicians(97.5%) recognized the necessity of hospital QA activities. The most dominant supporting reason for quality activities was to improve clinical outcome. Two thirds of physicians regarded their own hospital activities for quality improvement as inactive. They considered that the obstacles were too little concern(33.6%), unclear objectives(28.9%), lack of human resources(14.3%), and insufficient education and training for quality improvement(10.1%). The most favoring policy among respondents was to give health care providers economic incentives. Provision of education and training for implementing quality improvement was the next to it. Physicians revealed their preferences for professional society, government, health insurance societies, consumer groups, hospital labor unions, and mass media in sequence as sponsoring agencies for hospital accreditation program. Conclusion : These study suggested that the concrete means for motivating physicians and promoting constructive partnership among related parties should be developed in order to activate current hospital quality activities in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.543-552
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• 2014

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop integrated evaluation indicators of home care services in the hope that the increasing group of long-term home care patients could receive quality care services. Methods: The development involves a methodological study on a development phase and a verification phase. The main survey at a verification stage was conducted by the staffs at 146 institutions who agreed to participate on this study. Results: The evaluation index for the integrated home visit care consisted of five categories and 57 indicators including Managing Institution (12), Environment and Safety (3), Right and Responsibility (7), Process of Care (31) and Results of Care (4). The criterion-related validity was verified in regard to the participation in the 2010 evaluation of long-term home-care institutions by the National Health Insurance Corporation. Conclusion: The evaluation index of the integrated home visiting care developed in this study is considered suitable to utilize as evaluating indicators in managing and evaluating the way of how institutions integrate and provide home visit care services as well as home nursing care services.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.126-135
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• 1995

Background: Korean Hospital Standardization Program(KHSP), as a hospital accreditation program initiated and promoted by Korean Hospital Association since 1981, has played a key role in the hospital quality improvement in structural aspect particularly. Recently, however, KHSP has been critisized by hospitals and health personnels in that it is unpractical to be utilized as an initiative to improve hospital quality. In particular, the section of quality assurance in KHSP, strongly influenced by old version of Hospital Accreditation of Joint Commission in U.S.A., has been required to be fundamentally revised. For design of new criteria in quality assurance section, a survey for evaluation of existing program and collection of opinions for ideal one was conducted. Methods: For a month in 1994, structured questionnaires were administered by mailing to 470 hospital staffs from 200 hospitals, participated in the survey for the 1994 KHSP in each hospital. The total number of respondents was 116. Results: Less than half of the respondents(34.5%) value positively on the impact of current KHSP in general on the quality improvement of their hospitals. Moreover, most responses indicated that KHSP should be reorganized towards more practical and applicable one. Current KHSP criteria for quality activities in hospitals were regarded as a unpractical one which should be basically renewed. For new criteria and standards, most respondents emphasized the importance of applicability of those in real situations. Conclusion: For the KHSP to be effective, new evaluation criteria for quality activities should be more practical and fully accommodated to hospital situations in reality.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.69-85
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to investigate the home-health-care workers licensing education course in Seoul, Korea. Based on the previous research, a conceptual model was suggested explaining the dynamics of perceived educational service quality (SERVQUAL), educational satisfaction and the occupational readiness. The data set for this study drawn from the 297 self-administered surveys were analyzed with the suggested conceptual model by utilizing AMOS program. The measurement models and conceptual model fit well with the collected data set. As results of this study, 5 domains of SERVQUAL were produced including accountability, trustiness, responsiveness, sympathy, and assurance. The results of structural modeling with latent variables confirmed that SERVQUAL were influenced perceived educational satisfaction as well as occupational readiness. Among the SERVQUAL domains, accountability, trustiness, responsiveness, and assurance had significant impacts on the educational satisfaction while accountability, trustiness and responsiveness had significant direct effects on the occupational readiness. The trustiness had significant indirect effects on the occupational readiness via the educational satisfaction. Hence, the educational satisfaction had the significant impacts on the occupational readiness. Based on the findings of this study, we suggest to intense the educational program or curricular focusing on the SERVQUAL elements. Those changes will enhance self-confidence among the prospective home-health-care workers as well as public trustiness on the national long-term care program.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.570-581
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• 2001

The purpose of this study was to analyze consumers' expectation. perception and satisfaction. The subjects in this study were 200 employees who were employed in a department store. They experienced nursing services from the primary care center at the department store. The results were as follows: 1. The rank of perceived significance of nursing services is tangibility, reliability, assurance, responsiveness. and empathy, respectively. 2. The rank of perceived service quality is empathy. responsiveness. assurance. reliability. and tangibility. 3. The rank of expectation and the rank of perception about nursing services are same. They are assurance, reliability, responsiveness, tangibility, and empathy respectively. 4. The regression analysis, which related the effect of perceived service quality to consumers satisfaction, had R2 value of 22.9%. From the above results, it can be concluded that the higher consumers' satisfaction can be explained by the greater perceived service quality.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.66-94
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• 1994

Hospital Accreditation Programme(HAP) has been introduced in many countries in the world for these recent years. This article reviews the HAP in the aspects of the organization, survey and evaluation process, evaluation criteria, and its impact to the hospital quality improvement. The nations included in this study are USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and Korea. To carry out this comparative study, the authors have reviewed articles and accreditation manuals having been issued in many countries. An expert panel of medical doctor, nurse, pharmacist, administrator, and specialist in health facilities formulated a study framework. The results of this study enhance understanding about hospital accreditation activities according to each nation's health care system. In recent years, the Korean government has launched the plan to improve the quality of health services by strengthening the hospital accreditation programme. This study results can provide useful information in development and implementation of the national hospital accreditation programme in Korea.