• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.13-23
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• 2016

Objectives : This research used an exploratory approach to identify factors affecting business strategies due to changes in the healthcare market and customer loyalty factors. Methods : The research model was formulated using antecedents divided into diagnosis quality, employee attitudes, and servicescape. Moreover, differences in the structured model were analyzed according to hospital size. The data were gathered through surveys on clients, who has received care at participating hospitals. From the 200 that were distributed, 150 questionnaires were analyzed, to facilitate analysis of the research model. Results : The effects of diagnosis quality, employee attitudes, and servicescape, on customer loyalty were mediated by trust. We also found the differences between small and large hospitals. Conclusions : Customer loyalty in small hospitals was affected by servicescape, whereas that in large hospitals was affected by diagnosis quality and employee attitudes. The research results could be used to develop strategies to improve customer loyalty.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.103-111
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• 2013

Seven diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) prospective payment system is going to expand to all hospitals including university hospitals this year. However there are few studies on the change of practice pattern under prospective payment system in the university hospital setting. So This study was intended to predict the practice pattern change after the introduction of 7 DRGs prospective payment system in a university hospital setting. To predict the change of practice pattern, this study used simulation technique. Five hundred and nineteen patients classified as 5 DRGs in a university hospital were selected for simulation. The change of practice pattern were predicted based on clinicians' opinion. We also predicted payment change by service items. Major findings of this study are as follows. First, the total medical payment was reduced by 14.4%. The drug payment change (8.8%) took most of total payment reduction. The followings are the change of treatment material cost (3.2%), the change of laboratory tests cost (1.8%), the change of room charge (0.5%), and other payment change (0.1%), respectively. Second, most of the reduction in total medical payment resulted from the decreased amount of medical services themselves. The transfer of medical services to outpatient setting took up only 4.9% of the total payment reduction. The change of unit price or composition took up 5.5% of the total payment reduction. In this study we found that it is possible to reduce the inpatient services through practice pattern change in university hospital setting. However, it needs to be careful to adjust DRG payment after the reduction of provided services, because most of reduction was not due to service transfer but to service volume reduction. It is desirable to utilize the saving from practice pattern change as incentive to improve quality of care.

• Journal of Korean Academic Society of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.5-14
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• 2003

Recently, there has been an increasing need for long-term care and comprehensive health care services in community settings. The Ministry of Health and Welfare introduced the Hospital-Based Home Nursing Care Program in 2000. Before this initiative, there was a Home Nursing Demonstration Center, affiliated with the Seoul Nurse Association, had offered home nursing services with the financial support from the local government. since 1993, the Center's nursing staff has been engaged in a general hospital in an effort to provide home nursing care services within Korea's health care system. The purpose of this study was to analyze and identify characteristics of community-based home nursing care supplied by a community-based home nursing team engaged in a general hospital. Also. visit nursing care services provided by public health centers were evaluated in terms of accessibility and supply versus demand, to enhance the accessibility of low-income patients living in Seoul to home nursing care services. Data were collected from home nursing insurance reimbursement claims submitted by the community-based home nursing care team from March 1 to October 30 in 2001 and a questionnaire survey on home-visit nursing services of 25 public health centers in Seoul. The subjects consisted of 197 patients and 12 public health centers. The result were as follows. First, medical institution's community-based home nursing care program was better in technical quality than health-center-based home-visit nursing care. In addition. the pattern of the subject patients was similar to that of hospital-based home nursing care program. Second, there was a high demand for community-based home nursing care while only a small number of home-visiting nurses served at public health centers in Seoul. As a result, many patients could not receive adequate care. Finally, we suggest that community-based home nursing care program should be introduced in the national health system to meet the at-home care needs of severely ill low-income patients. Furthermore, to better utilize home nursing and visit-nursing care resources and offer continued care for patients in community settings, an efficient referral network should be built among related institutions. This would require improvement of reimbursement system and amendment of the law related to health insurance system and community-based home nursing care services.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.225-232
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• 2006

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the services and cost of CVA patients in hospital-based home health care and compare the differences of home health care cost by hospital types. Methods: The subjects of this study were 5,756 home care patients with cerebrovascular disease. Data were collected by using home health care medical expense claims from 127 hospitals in 2004. Results: The home care service 'indewelling catheterization' was the highest(19.28%), and then 'nasogastric tube insertion and change(16.72%)', 'bladder irrigation(15.98)', 'wound management(simple dressing)(10.42%)' followed. Average home health care cost per visit was 39,943 won, and the highest 46,058 won in general hospitals and the lowest 33,922 won in tertiary hospitals, so there were statistically significant among the types of hospitals(F=1112.47, p<0.0001). Conclusions: The number of home health care patients has been rapidly growing with the increase of aged population and demand for home care services is rising. So, it could be urgent to develop a reasonable cost reimbursement system for home health services and to expend scopes of the roles of home care specialist nurses. Amid the demand of more detail understanding the present status of home care, our study can be contributed to provide fundamental information of home care in Korea.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.47-56
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• 2017

Purpose : This study is a basic research to establish guidelines for healthcare facility in Korean healthcare market. As a first step, it is a main purpose for making beginning point of ICU guideline to set a basic level of ICU facility size and quality by analysis current ICU facilities and existed domestic guidelines : law, criteria of healthcare insurance review and assessment service, credit of Korea institute for healthcare accreditation. Methods : First of all, the all requirements of existed guidelines are put together and summarized. The summary is compared with that of US, UK, and Australia to know its quality difference with international market. In addition, all hospitals in Korean market are classified based on total bed number and ICU bed number to know the most occupied facility size range in the market. Second of all, by comparing 15 ICUs' current setting of the public general hospital, a general condition of ICU facility would be extracted based on function, floor area per bed, services Results : 72.8% of hospitals in Korea are belonging below 500 beds hospital. Among them 200-299 beds hospitals occupied 35.3% and are shown as the most occupied hospital size. As 15 public general hospitals are analyzed, it is clear that the more bed size and services the more ICU area per bed. As a result it is sure that the 300~500 bed may be a clear line as a general ICU condition whose function and bed number relatively consistent in the range. Implications : to keep the qualified medical environment and contemporary hospital trend, the guideline as a minimum requirement keep naturally out from current healthcare settings and should reflect their limit to reconcile with the new trend in the market.

• 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.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.301-309
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• 2017

The study analyzes the effects of quality factors of health check-up service applied to military officer every year on the value and the behavioral intention of consumers so that it is be able to suggest alternatives to realize a systematic and realistic health check-up system. The survey period was from September 27 to October 4, 2016 and 294 out of 300 patients were finally selected; Frequency analysis, ANOVA analysis, Pearson's correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were performed. In conclusion, the Age(p<0.05), Number of examinations(p<0.01), Medical communication(p<0.01), Quality of service(p<0.001), Medical Services Value(p<0.001) were drawn as characterized results by sectors regarding health screening service quality and customer satisfaction and behavioral intention. In the future, the military should improve the quality of education and publicity programs to improve the awareness of health checkup system, and improve quality of health checkup service to detect diseases early.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.218-228
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• 2000

Background : Among 'structure', 'process' and 'outcome' approaches, outcome evaluation is considered as the most direct and best approach to assess the quality of health care providers. Risk-adjustment is an essential method to compare outcome across providers. This study has aims to judge performance of hospitals by severity adjusted mortality rates of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. Methods : Medical records of 584 patients who got the CABG surgery in 6 general hospitals during 1996 and 1997 were reviewed by trained nurses. The MedisGroups was used to quantify severity of patients. The predictive probability of death was calculated for each patient in the sample from a multivariate logistic regression model including the severity score, age and sex. For evaluation of hospital performance, we calculated ratio of observed number to expected number of deaths and z score [(observed number of deaths - expected number of deaths)/square root of the variance in the number of deaths], and compared observed mortality rate with confidence interval of adjusted mortality rate for each hospital. Results : The overall in-hospital mortality was 7.0%, ranged from 2.7% to 15.7% by hospital. After severity adjustment the mortality by hospital was from 2.7% to 10.7%. One hospital with poor performance was distinctly divided from others with good performance. Conclusion : In conclusion, severity-adjusted mortality rate of CABG surgery might be applied as an indicator for hospital performance evaluation in Korea. But more pilot studies and improvement of methodologies has to be done to use it as quality indicator.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.218-231
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• 2001

Background : The purpose of this study was to investigate the understanding and the attitude of Korean hospital CEOs toward the healthcare quality improvement. Methods : A mailed questionnaire survey to the CEOs of hospitals with 400 beds or more was conducted between September 15 and October 30, 2000. Of the 108 hospitals eligible for the study, 58 participated, yielding a response rate of 54 percent. Result : The hospital CEOs have expressed that their hospital management was arduous job, and they had been pressured by increasing competitions among healthcare providers. They indicated that the low fees of health insurance made their hospital management difficult. The results also indicated that there was general consensus that the improvement of service quality was important in encouraging their organizations, but the investment of manpower and equipment ranked higher than the improvement of service quality. The majority of the CEOs have good understanding about quality improvement activities. However the facts that in general QI must be focused at the process of services and customer satisfaction, meanwhile quality improvement activities are helpful for the organizational productivity embarrassed them. The hospital CEOs responded that there were successful changes in terms of quality of care, patient satisfaction, and process efficiency after QI activities, but no increase in patient number and profit. Lack of understanding to QI activities and limited budget seem to attribute unsatisfactory outcomes. Conclusion : The majority of Korean hospital CEOs have a good understanding and attitude about QI activities. As mentioned in the result, despite of several limitations, several facts regarding the CEOs of hospital in Korean can be elucidated. (1) The general cognition of the QI project is relatively high, and it is accepted with positive concern, (2) the priority of the QI project, however, is not set higher than other projects and (3) the specific concepts of the actual QI project such as customer (patient)-focused work driving, the recognition of the work accomplishment, and the importance of rewards have not sufficiently understood.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.569-581
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to define the quality of nursing services in relation to a nurse's psychosocial factors (type A behavior pattern, self-esteem, locus of control, and anxiety), job stress, and fatigue. This study targeted 503 nurses currently working at one of six general hospitals in Daejeon city, the data were collected by a self-administered questionnaire, which was surveyed from April 1 to June 30, 2014. According to multivariate logistic regression analysis, the high self-esteem, locus of control, and strong support by supervisor and co-workers decrease the risk of a low career quality. In contrast, high situational fatigue and overall fatigue increase the risk of a low career quality. According to the results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the quality of nursing services increased with age, the subjective health condition was satisfying, aptitude corresponded to the jobs, self-esteem was high, anxiety was low, support by co-workers was strong, and the overall fatigue was low. Above results suggest that the quality of nursing services of nurses who work at a general hospital has a strong correlation with the psychosocial factors, job stress, and fatigue.