• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 2016

Background: Selective health benefit was introduced for decreasing economic burden of patients. Medical devices with economic uncertainty have been covered as selective health benefit by National Health Insurance since December 2013. We aimed to analyze impact of selective health benefit to medical expenditure and provider behavior focused on electrosurgery (ultrasonic shears, electrothermal bipolar vessel sealers) for gastric cancer patients covered since December 2014. Methods: We used the National Health Insurance claims data of 2,698 patients underwent gastric cancer surgery between August 2014 and March 2015. Medical cost and patient sharing per inpatient day were analyzed to verify that covering electrosurgery increased medical expenditure and changed provider behavior from open surgery to endoscopic or laparoscopic surgery. Additionally, we analyzed the claim rate of medical device or goods relating gastric endoscopic and laparoscopic surgery. Results: Medical cost and patient sharing per inpatient day were increased after covering electosurgery as selective health benefit (39,724/1,421 won). However, there were no medical expenditure increases after adjusting claim of electosurgery and patient sharing was decreased 1,057 won especially. The coverage of selective health benefit did not increase the claim rate of medical device or goods related endoscopic or laparoscopic surgery, either. Conclusion: Covering electosurgery decreased patient economic burden and did not change of provider behavior. Expanding selective health benefit is needed to decrease economic burden of severe patients. Further study should evaluate the long term effect with accumulated data.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.43-73
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• 2016

Purpose: The aims of this study were to assess the presence of core patient safety practices in Korean hospitals and assess the differences in reporting and learning systems of patient safety, infrastructure, and safe practices by hospital characteristics. Methods: The authors developed a questionnaire including 39 items of patient safety staffing, health information system, reporting system, and event-specific prevention practices. The survey was conducted online or e-mail with 407 tertiary, general and specialty hospitals. Results: About 90% of hospitals answered the self-reporting system of patient safety related events is established. More than 90% of hospitals applied incidence monitoring or root cause analysis on healthcare-associated infection, in-facility pressure ulcers and falls, but only 60% did on surgery/procedure related events. More than 50% of the hospitals did not adopted present on admission (POA) indicators. One hundred (80.0%) hospitals had a department of patient safety and/or quality and only 52.8% of hospitals had a patient safety officer (PSO). While 82.4% of hospitals used electronic medical records (EMRs), only 53% of these hospitals adopted clinical decision support function. Infrastructure for patient safety except EMRs was well established in training, high-level and large hospitals. Most hospitals implemented prevention practices of adverse drug events, in-facility pressure ulcers and falls (94.4-100.0%). But prevention practices of surgery/procedure related events had relatively low adoption rate (59.2-92.8%). Majority of prevention practices for patient safety events were also implemented with a relatively modest increase in resources allocated. Conclusion: The hospital-based reporting and learning system, EMRs, and core evidence-based prevention practices were implemented well in high-level and large hospitals. But POA indicator and PSO were not adopted in more than half of surveyed hospitals and implementation of prevention practices for specific event had low. To support and monitor progress in hospital's patient safety effort, national-level safety practices set is needed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.8-13
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• 2015

One of the most usual indicators to measure the performance of any inventory policy is the mean physical stock. In general, when estimating the mean physical stock in periodic review inventory systems, approximate approaches are often utilized by practitioners and researchers. The mean physical stock is generally calculated by a simple approximation. Still these simple methods are frequently used to analyze various single stockpoint and multi-echelon inventory systems. However, such a simple approximation can be very inaccurate. This is particularly true for low service levels. Even though exact methods to calculate the mean physical stock have been derived, they are available for specific cases only and computationally not very efficient, and therefore less useful in practice. In literature, approximate approaches, such as the simple, the linear, and Simpson approximations, were derived for the periodic review inventory systems that allow backorders. This paper modifies the approximate approaches for the lost sales case and evaluates the modified approximate approaches. Through computational experiments, average (and maximum) percentage deviations of mean physical stock between the exact method and the modified approximations are compared in the periodic review inventory system with lost sales. The same comparison between the modified and the original approximations are also conducted, in order to examine the performance of modified approximations. The results show that all modified approximations perform well for high service levels, but also that the performance may deteriorate fast with decreasing service level. The modified Simpson approximation is clearly better. In addition, the comparison between the modified and the original approximations in the periodic review inventory system with lost sales shows that the modified approximation outperforms the original approximation.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.45-57
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• 2010

Background : If different cost efficiency indexes were informed to the same clinic depending on the inclusion or exclusion of pharmacy cost, it may impair the reliability of provider-profiling system. This study aimed to investigate whether the omission of pharmacy cost affects cost-efficiency rankings in medical clinics. Methods : Data for ambulatory care cost at 23,112 medical clinics were collected from the claims database, which was constructed after review by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) of Korea in April 2007. We calculated two types of cost efficiency indexes by inclusion or exclusion of pharmacy cost for a medical clinic. The agreement between the decile rankings of the two indexes was also assessed using the weighted kappa statistic of Landis and Koch. Results : When the cost efficiency index for total cost including pharmacy cost was compared with the index for total cost excluding it, the agreement between the two indexes was only 55%. The agreements between the two indexes were relatively low within specialties which have larger pharmacy volume of total cost and lower correlation between total cost with or without pharmacy cost included than the average level of all the specialties. Conclusion : These results suggest that the omission of pharmacy cost may result in contradictory outcomes that may be confusing to a medical institution and may impair the reliability of provider-profiling systems. It is very important to standardize profiling criteria for the reliability of provider profiling system.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.47-57
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• 2023

Purpose: Health expenditure and utilization of Korean medicine are increasing every year. Since Chuna Manual Therapy was covered by National Health Insurance in 2019, it is predicted that the usage of Chuna Manual Therapy would be also increasing. However, there are few studies about Chuna Manual Therapy using Korean National Health Insurance claims database. Therefore, we will investigate the utilization trend of outpatient's Chuna Manual Therapy using Korean National Health Insurance database and suggest political implications. Methodology: The Korean National Health Insurance claims database was used to identify outpatient's Chuna Manual Therapy usage spanning 4 years from 2019-2023 and the number of Chuna Manual Therapy claims were approximately 18.61 million. Findings: The number of Chuna Manual Therapy claims and patients, health expenditure of Chuna Manual Therapy have been increasing spanning 4 years among over 65 aged. In the case of female patients, the number of Chuna Manual Therapy claims was more than male patients and health spending related to Chuna Manual Therapy was also higher than male patients. Most patients visited Korean medicine clinics due to musculoskeletal diseases, and most claims were from rural regions. Practical Implication: Since Chuna Manual Therapy was covered by National Health Insurance in 2019, Utilization of Chuna Manual Therapy has been increased overall. In particular, Chuna Manual Therapy is mostly implemented in the elderly, Korean medicine clinics, and local areas, thus policy managers will need to consider this.

• Review of Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.28-33
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• 2015

• Review of Korean Society for Internet Information
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.23-29
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• 2018

• Information Systems Review
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.47-60
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• 2001

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.197-198
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• 2019

• Review of Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.18-23
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• 2020