• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.223-234
• /
• 2021

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to check up the status of 119 emergency control centers usage. Therefore, the status of use of 119 emergency control centers and the incidence of pre-hospital cardiac arrest patients were investigated. Methods: The emergency activity daily reports and first aid diaries of 119 emergency control centers from January to December 2018 were reviewed. For more accurate status analysis, Among the first aid guidance received in the emergency rescue standard system, the cardiopulmonary resuscitation guide log was reviewed. Results: In 2018, the total usage of the 119 emergency control centers was 1,358,356 calls, hospital guidance werethe most commom (n=629,676, 46.4%), followed by first aid (n=428,027, 31.5%), disease consultation (n=170,238, 12.5%), medical oversight (n=111,188, 8.2%), and interhospital transfer (n=5,052, 0.4%). Regarding the user number per 1,000 persons, Jeju was the greatest at 48.0, whereas Changwon was the lowest at 13.0. A total number of dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation was 12.181. The time from report to chest compression were 156.2±80.8 seconds for those with previous cardiopulmonary resuscitation training and 168.0±79.3 seconds for those without such training (p<.05). Conclusion: The ratio of first aid instructions, including dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation, among total usage of the 119 emergency control centers increased. Therefore, additional efforts are required to improve the quality and expertise of information provided through the 119 emergency control centers.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.39-53
• /
• 2021

Purpose: Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) have so far been trained as professionals under the same conditions, with no change in the 1995 Act. We aimed to find ways for them to secure expertise in accordance with social needs by strengthening the quality of the EMT education. Methods: This is a descriptive study comparing the operation status of the national emergency medical examination conducted by the Korea Health Personnel Licensing Examination Institute, and the national examinations of EMT paramedic and EMT basic. The scope of the national examinations for EMT was compared by subject and area. Results: The national written exam for EMT paramedic consists of five areas. EMT basic does not include basic medicine in three related subjects, 11 areas, and 18 detail areas. Paramedic care does not include advanced pediatric life support. In addition, nine areas and 20 detail areas are not included. Conclusion: The study suggests the need for institutional supplementation so that those who have completed EMT basic and the subjects prescribed by the ordinance of the Ministry of Health and Welfare at universities, etc., in the Higher Education Act can take the EMT paramedic national exam.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.1-14
• /
• 1998

Analysis of practice variations has been one of important issues in trying to contain costs as well as to manage quality in health care. This study was conducted to provide statistical model for analysing variations in inpatient costs by type of hospitals. Four K-DRGs including Cesarean section, appendectomy, cataract extraction, and pediatric pneumonia with CC class 0 were selected, and means and dispersions of inpatient procedure and operation costs were simultaneously compared between type of hospitals. The results indicated that joint modelling of means and dispersions by gamma distribution was a very useful analytic tool for identifying factors which might have relationship with variations in inpatient costs. This model can be expanded to test the significance of several independent variables in analysing cost variations. In surgical conditions, means and unit variations of procedure and operation costs showed consistent pattern which was tertiarty hospital, general hospital, and hospital in descending order. Different findings were identified in pediatric pneumonia, from which mean and unit variation of procedure and operation cost was the highest in general hospital. The practical implication of this difference could not be drawn from this study. It will be done by further sophisticated researches. In order to develop health policy for cost containment and quality management in Korea, it is essential to find out manageable factors affecting variations in practice patterns which include characteristics of population, providers, regions, and so on. The statistical model presented in this study will give health services researchers useful insights for future investigations in analysing cost variations.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.123-142
• /
• 2010

The Government is going to enforce assessment of dental institutions in addition to assessment of medical institutions so that it can provide good-quality medical service to people having much interest in quality of medical service. But the empirical research on the assessment of dental institutions which is still in a model assessment stage, is insufficient. Accordingly, the present research aims to help dental institutions preparing the main assessment by researching an acceptance level of workers of dental institutions in a process performing assessment of dental institutions, based on the preceding researches that the perceived utility has influence on implementation intention. The present research proved the influence that job relevance, result demonstration, usability and education & training of workers and manager's leadership of an infection management part affects perceived utility and implementation intention. As a research result, all the job relevance, result demonstration, usability have a positive(+) influence on perceived utility and implementation intention, and the influence of job relevance most affects especially. The leadership and education & training have influence on what workers get to have implementation intention after perception of utility of infection management according to the order. According to the above results, it can be understood that medical institutions preparing for assessment of dental institutions take charge of the assessment part having high relevance with work of workers and need to make a manager ordering performance of its assessment be able to foster a leadership for improving effectiveness of assessment performance.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
• /
• v.12 no.11
• /
• pp.1680-1691
• /
• 2009

To improve the quality of healthcare and build up the health delivery system, electronic health record system is important for healthcare institutions providing health services. However, the systems currently operated in domestic healthcare institutions use independent software interface with distributed environment for data search and process. Therefore, it raises an additional expense to buy or develop each interface module when there is a link to new system and the problem of complexity. To solve these problems, this study implemented the service oriented architecture basis for home nursing service and carried out an assessment. The study defined the process modeling and business requirements based on the scenario of service and drew 17 suitable services based on five verification items for service design. To draw the final service, seven services were selected by service litmus test (SLT). The study found that, by the improvement of business process for healthcare service support department, SOA based information system has an effect of time reduction of patient processing time. In conclusion, to enable the hospital information system to cope with various demands of healthcare consumers, it is necessary to consider the application of SOA technology which has excellent interoperability, reusability and maintenance.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
• /
• v.29 no.1
• /
• pp.56-66
• /
• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate whether the comprehensive nursing care service positively affected accidental falls and pressure injuries. Methods: This study was a retrospective study that analyzed the accidental falls and pressure injuries cases in an acute care hospital located in Seoul and compared the rates of accidental falls and pressure injuries before and after the comprehensive nursing care service was operated. Results: Comparing the accidental fall incidence rates per 100 person-months between a comprehensive nursing care ward and a general ward, it showed fewer accidental falls by 0.44 in comprehensive nursing care wards, but the result was not statistically significant. In the case of pressure ulcers, the incident rate per 100 person-month was 6.17 in general wards and 4.77 in comprehensive nursing care wards, which showed that the number of pressure ulcer patients was lower in comprehensive nursing care wards, however it was also not statistically significant. Conclusion: It is not confirmed that the operation of the comprehensive nursing care service contributes to the reduction of accidental hospital falls or pressure injuries. Follow-up studies are recommended to determine the effectiveness of comprehensive nursing services in quality indicators.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.216-231
• /
• 2003

Objectives: To develop a model that predicts a death probability of acute myocardial infarction(AMI) patient, and to evaluate a performance of hospital services using the developed model. Methods: Medical records of 861 AMI patients in 7 general hospitals during 1996 and 1997 were reviewed by two trained nurses. Variables studied were risk factors which were measured in terms of severity measures. A risk model was developed by using the logistic regression, and its performance was evaluated using cross-validation and bootstrap techniques. The statistical prediction capability of the model was assessed by using c-statistic, $R^2$ as well as Hosmer-Lemeshow statistic. The model performance was also evaluated using severity-adjusted mortalities of hospitals. Results: Variables included in the model building are age, sex, ejection fraction, systolic BP, congestive heart failure at admission, cardiac arrest, EKG ischemia, arrhythmia, left anterior descending artery occlusion, verbal response within 48 hours after admission, acute neurological change within 48 hours after admission, and 3 interaction terms. The c statistics and $R^2$ were 0.887 and 0.2676. The Hosmer-Lemeshow statistic was 6.3355 (p-value=0.6067). Among 7 hospitals evaluated by the model, two hospitals showed significantly higher mortality rates, while other two hospitals had significantly lower mortality rates, than the average mortality rate of all hospitals. The remaining hospitals did not show any significant difference. Conclusion: The comparison of the qualities of hospital service using risk-adjusted mortality rates indicated significant difference among them. We therefore conclude that risk-adjusted mortality rate of AMI patients can be used as an indicator for evaluating hospital performance in Korea.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.130-134
• /
• 2021

In the era of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), social distancing and strict visitation policies at hospitals have made it difficult for medical staff to provide high-quality end-of-life (EOL) care to dying patients and their families. There are various issues related to EOL care, including psychological problems of patients and their families, difficulties in EOL decision-making, the complicated grief of the bereaved family, moral distress, and exhaustion of medical staff. In relation to these issues, we aimed to discuss practical considerations in providing high-quality EOL care in the COVID-19 pandemic. First, medical staff should discuss advance care planning as early as possible and use the parallel planning strategy. Second, medical staff should play a role in facilitating patient-family communication. Third, medical staff should actively and proactively evaluate and alleviate dying patients' symptoms using non-verbal communication. Lastly, medical staff should provide care for family members of the dying patient, who may be particularly vulnerable to post-bereavement problems in the COVID-19 era. Establishing a system of screening high-risk individuals for complicated grief and connecting them to bereavement support services might be considered. Despite the challenging and limited environment, providing EOL care is essential for patients to die with dignity in peace and for the remaining family to return to life after the loved one's death. Efforts considering the practical issues faced by all medical staff and healthcare institutions caring for dying patients should be made.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.71-97
• /
• 2004

This study conducted a comparative analysis of awareness level of review standards, continuing education, and awareness about the need for speciality and educational courses in order to improve quality of Korean health insurance review work and to present directions for policies of personnel development and continuing education to smoothly perform hospital's insurance claim work and Agency's review work. The analysis unit of the study is individuals, and survey was conducted among hospital's claim officers and Agency' review officers by distributing questionnaires. The major results of the study are as follows: First, it is found that hospital's claim officers and Agency's review officers have conflicting awareness about review standards; more Agency's review officers think that current review standards are universal and reasonable, while more hospital's claim officers believe that they need to be revised. Especially, hospital's claim officers replied that it is possible that review results can differ according to government's policies. Second, there is no significant difference between the two groups in the opinion that there are individual differences in awareness level of review standard. In particular, both groups share the opinion that review results can differ according to officer's interpretation of review standards. Third, Both review officer groups feel the need for further training and continuing education. Fourth, there is no difference between the two groups in the opinion that both groups members should be educated in review related educational institutions. However, while 81.5% of Agency's review officers the education should be offered at the Agency, only 45.2% of hospital's claim officers agreed to it. Fifth, both review personnel do not show any difference in awareness of needed experience to successfully perform review work; both groups replied that three to four years experience is necessary to smoothly perform claim work and review work. This study was tried in order to search for directions to improve Korean insurance review work in quality rather than to explore characteristics themselves of individual factors. In this sense, this study presupposed an intention that the educational subjects for further training and continuing education for the two groups should be the same in order to narrow the awareness gap between hospital's claim officers and Agency's review officers. Thus, this study suggests that it is desirable to offer beginner courses at junior colleges or in undergraduate courses and advanced courses in professional graduate school for six to twelve months. In that a comparison of awareness level of hospital's claim officers and Agency's review officers who are actually in practice should precede appropriate presentation of directions for the qualitative improvement of insurance review work in Korea, the significance of this study lies in comparatively analyzing the awareness level of hospital's claim officers and Agency's review officers and in presenting the establishment of future further training and continuing education.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.27-42
• /
• 2021

This study investigated the differences in patient experience by arrangement type of medical tourism facilitators(MTF) from the pre-visit to visit stages. Specifically, patient experiences from each stage with different service providers (MTFs and medical institutions) were measured: provision of information and respect for patient preferences as pre-visit experiences with the facilitators, communication and concierge services as visit experiences with the facilitators, and medical services as medical institution experiences. The scale to measure foreign patients' experiences was modified from the 'Picker in-patient questionnaire(PPE)' and the 'Picker patient experience questionnaire(PPE-15)'. Quantitative data were collected by conducting a self-administered questionnaire on 173 patients from China, Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. Qualitative data were collected by conducting in-depth interviews with 9 patients and 9 service providers. The data were collected between January and October in 2019. Quantitative data was analyzed by SPSS 25 for Chi-squared test and ANOVA, and qualitative data were analyzed based on keywords. The main results are as follows. When foreign patients used only overseas MTFs, they had a relatively positive patient experience in respect of receiving pre-visit information(F=7.47, p<.01) and respect for patient preferences(F=3.11, p<.05). Looking at both domestic and overseas facilitators during the visit, the patient experience was relatively negative for communication(F=3.75, p<.05). Regarding medical institutions, patients had a relatively negative patient experience with regards to medical services when they used both domestic and overseas facilitators(F=6.49, p<.01). The implications of this study are as follows. Patients should have a seamless and high-quality experience regardless of the facilitator arrangement type. This can be prepared through service standardization for the service providers. It would be also necessary to consider each other's features and problems at the institutional level and to improve service coordination by having service providers periodically communicate with each other.