• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.10-18
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• 2020

Background: The elevated risk of occupational infection such as tuberculosis among health workers in many countries raises the question of whether the quality of occupational health and safety (OHS) and infection prevention and control (IPC) can be improved by auditing. The objectives of this study were to measure (1) audited compliance of primary health-care facilities in South Africa with national standards for OHS and IPC, (2) change in compliance at reaudit three years after baseline, and (3) the inter-rater reliability of the audit. Methods: The study analyzed audits of 60 primary health-care facilities in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Baseline external audits in the time period 2011-2012 were compared with follow-up internal audits in 2014-2015. Audits at 25 facilities that had both internal and external audits conducted in 2014/2015 were used to measure reliability. Results: At baseline, 25% of 60 facilities were "noncompliant" (audit score<50%), 48% "conditionally compliant" (score >50 < 80%), and only 27% "compliant" (score >80%). Overall, there was no significant improvement in compliance three years after baseline. Percentage agreement on specific items between internal and external audits ranged from 28% to 92% and kappa from -0.8 to 0.41 (poor to moderate). Conclusion: Low baseline compliance with OHS-IPC measures and lack of improvement over three years reflect the difficulties of quality improvement in these domains. Low inter-rater reliability of the audit instrument undermines the audit process. Evidence-based investment of effort is required if repeat auditing is to contribute to occupational risk reduction for health workers.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.148-155
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• 2012

Since the reformation of the National Health Insurance Act in 2000, the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) in the Republic of Korea has performed quality assessments for healthcare providers. The HIRA Value Incentive Program (VIP), established in July 2007, provides incentives for excellent-quality institutions and disincentives for poorquality ones. The program is implemented based on data collected between July 2007 and December 2009. The goal of the VIP is to improve the overall quality of care and decrease the quality gaps among healthcare institutions. Thus far, the VIP has targeted acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and Caesarian section (C-section) care. The incentives and disincentives awarded to the hospitals by their composite quality scores of the AMI and C-section scores. The results of the VIP showed continuous and marked improvement in the composite quality scores of the AMI and C-section measures between 2007 and 2010. With the demonstrated success of the VIP project, the Ministry of Health and Welfare expanded the program in 2011 to include general hospitals. The HIRA VIP was deemed applicable to the Korean healthcare system, but before it can be expanded further, the program must overcome several major concerns, as follows: inclusion of resource use measures, rigorous evaluation of impact, application of the VIP to the changing payment system, and expansion of the VIP to primary care clinics.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.131-138
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to compare the health status of South Korea with those of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and examine the trends. Position vAlue for Relative Comparison (PARC) was used as a gauge for comparison, and five sectors of the health care system were measured: demand, supply, accessibility, quality, and cost. The Mann-Kendall test was used as a statistical analysis method to examine trend of PARC values obtained from 2000 to recent years. According to the results, the demand, supply, accessibility, and quality sectors were higher than the OECD average, while the cost was lower than the average. However, there is a recent trend of sharp increases in health care costs. Some indicators: health employment, quality of primary care and mental health care were lower than the OECD average, and health determinants showed a worsening trend. Therefore, policy-makers need to take this into account and make efforts for sustainable health care.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.80 no.3
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• pp.221-225
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• 2017

Since 2015, the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) has performed annual qualitative assessments of asthma management provided by all medical institutions that care for asthma patients in Korea. According to the third report of qualitative assessment of asthma management in 2017, the assessment appears to have contributed to improving the quality of asthma care provided by medical institutions, especially primary clinics. However, there is still a gap between the ideal goals of asthma management and actual health care policies/regulations in real clinical settings, which leads to the state of standstill with respect to the quality of asthma management despite considerable efforts such as the qualitative assessment of asthma management by national agencies such as the HIRA. At this point, a harmonized approach is needed to raise the level of asthma management among several components including medical policies, efforts of academic associations such as education and distribution of the guideline for management, and reliable financial support by the government.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.141-146
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• 2012

Over the past several decades, the assessment of quality of life (QoL) has increasingly played a prominent role in both clinical practice and research regardless of the medical field. Palliative care is defined as an approach that improves the QoL of patients and their families and optimizing their QoL is the primary goal of palliative care. However, it is difficult to compare related studies due to several obstacles such as discrepancies in definitions for palliative medicine, lack of consensus on the central domains and diverse instruments. In this paper, we examined the current status of and challenges in QoL studies and discussed possible solutions. We are convinced this review will be helpful for further palliative care studies.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.457-467
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• 2006

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the main factors influencing family functioning of caregivers in families with stroke. Method: A Convenient sample of 173 primary family caregivers who take care of a stroke patient at an Oriental medicine hospital in Jeonbuk. Interviews were done with a standardized questionnaire including family functioning by nurses. Results: In Pearson's correlation analysis, the influencing factors related to family functioning were ADL(p=.017), level of paralysis(p=.019) as stressors, Quality of relation(p=.000) as situational variables, and family caregivers' burden(p=.000). Stepwise multiple regression analysis showed 29.9% of the variance family functioning was significantly accounted for by the quality of relationship between stroke patient and caregiver(26.8%), and caregiver burden(3.1%). Conclusions: Findings indicate that families of stroke patients need family-focused nursing intervention as supported care to improve the relationship between patient and primary caregiver and relieve caregiver burden by culturally tailoring to Korean.

• Journal of Korean Academic Society of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.292-305
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• 2017

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the factors influencing the entrapment of primary caregivers of cancer patients. Methods: From 6 general hospitals, 146 primary caregivers of cancer patients who were receiving home healthcare nursing service were selected for the study. Regarding data collection, structured questionnaires were distributed to the caregivers for data collection. T-test, ANOVA and hierarchical regression were used for data analysis. Results: The significantly influential factors on their entrapment were caregiving time, taking turms to look after the patient, disease duration, home healthcare nursing period, quality of relationship, perceived health status, and social support. And the explanatory power was 55.1% Conclusion: To reduce primary caregivers' entrapment, it is necessary to perform comprehensive and continuous nursing intervention, and to develop a standardized home healthcare nursing intervention program, and to come up with a system for using resources available in local communities.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.177-196
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was conducted to develop the nursing process based performance measurement tool and the evidence based care standards for nursing care in medication management and blood transfusion. Methods: The care standards and performance measurement tool were drafted through comprehensive review of relevant literature, national guidelines, hospital protocols, and standards of recognized international accrediting bodies. The proposed care standards and performance measurement tool were reviewed by the panel of experts and refined based on the panel's suggestions. Final care standards and performance measurement tool were validated by surveying the hospital nurses. Results: All items of the performance measurement tool for medication management and blood transfusion were evaluated appropriate. All contents of care standards and the measurable elements except the evaluation of discharge education were appropriate. The performance measurement tool developed in this study was found to be acceptable as a tool to evaluate quality of nursing care in medication management and blood transfusion. Conclusion: The outcomes of this study including the performance measurement tool and evidence based care standards would be the important indicators to monitor whether necessary nursing care is implemented and be the useful primary resources to improve quality of nursing care services.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.428-438
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• 2016

The aim of this study, in order to reduce the support burden of dementia primary caregiver, within the framework of long-term care insurance system to present its founding model for the development of new services. Previous research as analytical materials and based on the CARE study between 2012 to 2013. Primary caregiver burden of patient are both physical, psychological and economic aspects as well as difficulties in many aspects and had influence on many factors such as age, care burden, economic, health, and social support. It also came high-risk primary caregiver suffer from depression. This primary caregiver to take advantage of the elderly long-term care insurance system implemented at the time of the institutional support necessary for since 2008, presented additional services in this study. Of increasing the small sizes day care center (tentative name) to open an as established in the settlements at a scale of less than nine, within 5 minutes from the residence, limited dementia by expertise in the disease home care services scale model of the current system service It was to improve the quality of existing shares, small group sizes for day care centers and community life apart.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.117-126
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• 2012

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the factors associated with the health-related quality of life of family caregivers. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted. This study included 191 primary family caregivers of elders who used home care services (home-visit nursing, home-visit care, daycare) covered by the public long-term care insurance. Data were collected using self-report questionnaires from December 2010 to June 2011. These data were analyzed by using hierarchical multiple regression. Results: The majority of the family caregivers were female (79.6%) and daughters-in-law (28.8%). The mean depression score was $6.33{\pm}6.49$ and the mean health-related quality of life score was $0.69{\pm}0.39$. It was found that the factors affecting the health-related quality of life of family caregivers included depression (${\beta}$=-.406, p<.001), home-visit nursing use (${\beta}$=.296, p<.001), and daycare use (${\beta}$=.178, p=.015), which accounted for 36.6% of their health-related quality of life. Conclusion: Using home-visit nursing and daycare services has a positive effect on the health-related quality of life of family caregivers. To improve health-related quality of life of family caregivers, South Korea needs to fully activate the home-visit nursing and daycare services, and to strengthen family support programs.