• Health Policy and Management
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.95-116
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• 2006

According to rapid increase of the population of senior citizens, there has been growing concern of Long-Tenn Care(LTC) services recently. Long-Tenn Care services, however, haven't been established systematically in Korea and the supply of LTC services is not sufficient despite the increase in the current social demand. This study aims to estimate the 'Willingness to Pay(WTP)' for LTC insurance which the government plans to introduce by means of social insurance, using Contingent Valuation Method(CYM). In addition, this study analyzes the factors affecting WTP for LTC insurance. An interview survey was carried out to derive WTP for LTC from 450 people who lived in Seoul aged 20 and above during the period from 16th to 21st of June 2003. Double-Bounded Dichotomous Choice Method was applied among several CVMs available to estimate both use value and no-use value of goods. There was pilot survey carried out prior to the main survey. The results show that the average monthly. WTP for LTC provided in home and residential setting is 18,192Won and 19,293Won, respectively. In the case of home care, WTP goes higher depending on reliability of LTC insurance policy and need for LTC insurance, as well as marital status, education and average monthly income. On the contrary, WTP is conversely affected by higher age and higher bids. In the case of institutional care, the factors affecting WTP are similar to those of home care, except age. This study followed NOAA's suggestions generally and the value derived through survey could be reliable. However, there can be the least bias in the process of survey because the CVM should be used under the supposed circumstances. Despite those limitations, it can be concluded that the amount the citizens are willing to pay for LTC is high enough to meet the costs needed to provide LTC.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.157-161
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• 2005

In the FY 2003, the number of registered vehicles in Korea reached 14 million, which is 7.7% increase from the previous year. The increase of number of vehicles has caused a lot of social problem with enormous costs. The social costs related to the vehicles includes environmental costs resulting from pollution and scraping of vehicles, those resulting from life-saving and repairing from car accidents and so on. There have been m any efforts to reduce the social costs in m any areas. As a part of the efforts, there are recent grow ing interests on the damageability & repairability in related industries. In this study, we investigated the cases of two different types of bum per stay. Futhermore, we analyzed their effects on damageability & repairability and reduction of repair cost. So we found that if the manufacturers design new cars with good damageability & repairability, then the total repair cost in crash will be reduced.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.71-79
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• 2015

In South Korea, few researches have been conducted into the incidence of injury diseases and into their demographic and sociologic characteristics. This research has estimated and analyzed the results of an questionnaire investigation carried out by the Korea medical panel (2008) and the social economic costs. In particular, an estimation has been conducted of social costs for each type of accident, injury and intoxication and of medical use for the injuries. For the future, it is necessary to develop concrete programs customized for age, education level, economic income and to continually implement injury prevention education, with a view to reducing the injury incidence and medical expenses; and also, individuals' participation in and social and national efforts are required for an efficient operation of the health insurance, for the purpose of reducing social and/or economic costs for injuries in South Korea.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.61-76
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• 2016

Objectives : This study was designed to clarify population-social characteristics that influence the utilization patterns of hospitalized patients in a traditional korean hospital, thereby providing clinical data which would help further improvements of traditional korean medical service in particular the Acupuncture and Moxibustion. Methods : We investigated population-social characteristics and annual utilization patterns of all patients who were hospitalized for more than 24 hours in a Korean Medical Hospital from January 2005 to December 2014. The obtained data were recorded in the EMR chart and statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 21.0. Additionally, data from the patients admitted to the department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion were analyzed separately. Results : 1. All inpatients had a significant annual difference in age, gender, hospitalized department, and disease code annually but not in re-hospitalization number. Inpatients of the department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion also varied in their age, gender, and disease code annually, but not in re-hospitalization number. 2. Pearson correlation analysis on all inpatients showed that the mean days of hospital treatments had a negative correlation with all variables except medical care insurance. Total cost, cost per day per person and recuperation cost had a positive correlation with all variables except medical care insurance. There was no meaningful relationship between nonrecuperation cost and the variables. 3. Stepwise multiple regression analysis on all inpatients showed that the mean days of hospital treatments had a negative correlation with all variables except automobile insurance. The total hospitalization costs had a positive correlation with both general insurance and medical care insurance. Cost per day per person and recuperation cost had a positive correlation with the females. There was no meaningful relationship between non-recuperation cost and the variables. 4. Pearson correlation analysis on inpatients of the department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion inpatients showed that the mean days of hospital treatments had a positive correlation with all variables except general insurance and automobile insurance. Total cost and recuperation cost had a positive correlation with all variables except medical care insurance, and cost per day per person had a positive correlation with females and general insurance. There was no meaningful relationship between non-recuperation cost and the variables. 5. Stepwise multiple regression analysis on inpatients of the department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion inpatients, the mean days of hospital treatments, total cost, cost per day per person and recuperation cost had a positive correlation with general insurance. There was no meaningful relationship between non-recuperation cost and the variables. Conclusion : Population-social characteristics of inpatients annually varies, and the change influences the utilization pattern.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.85 no.2
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• pp.165-174
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• 2022

Background: One goal of the End tuberculosis (TB) Strategy is to see no TB-affected households experiencing catastrophic costs. Therefore, it is crucial for TB-elimination programs to identify catastrophic costs and their main drivers in order to establish appropriate health and social measures. This study aimed to measure the percent of catastrophic costs experienced by Egyptian TB patients and to identify its determinants. Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study with 151 Egyptian TB patients recruited from two chest dispensaries from the Cairo governate from May 2019 to May 2020. We used a validated World Health Organization TB patient-cost tool to collect data on patients' demographic information, household income, and direct and indirect expense of seeking TB treatment. We considered catastrophic TB costs to be total costs exceeding 20% of the household's annual income. Results: Of the patients, 33% experienced catastrophic costs. The highest proportion of the total came in the pre-treatment stage. Being the main breadwinner, experiencing job loss, selling property, and the occurrence of early coronavirus disease 2019 lockdown were independent determinants of the incidence of catastrophic costs. Borrowing money and selling property were the most-often reported coping strategies adopted. Conclusion: Despite the availability of free TB care under the Egyptian National TB Program, nearly a third of the TB patients incurred catastrophic costs. Job loss and being the main breadwinner were among the significant predictors of catastrophic costs. Social protection mechanisms, including cash assistance and insurance coverage, are necessary to achieve the goal of the End TB Strategy.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.432-438
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• 2016

Whiplash injuries in low-speed rear-end collisions are the most common injuries and has been a social issue in insurance industry, such as excessive medical claim costs along with exaggerated injuries of victims and treatments from hospitals. According to the Korea Insurance Development Institute reports, the number of claims by rear-end collision was approximately 703,000, which accounts for 53.6 % of the total car-to-car collisions in 2014. Part of the neck injury claims in the Korea car insurance was approximately 28.3 %. Furthermore, approximately 98.4% of the injured persons in rear-end collisions sustained minor injuries under AIS2. In order to improve this situation as well as find out the severity of neck injuries from rear-end collision, the Korea Automobile Insurance Repair Research and Training Center conducted car-to-car rear-end crash tests that striking vehicles(SUV) collided into different sizes of struck-vehicles(small, middle, and large sedan) at the impact speeds of 8 km/h ~ 16 km/h. In order to analyze the whiplash injury, the BioRID-II was seated in each struck-vehicles, and the neck injury criteria(NIC), head contact time, maximum vehicle accelerations, and mean vehicle accelerations were calculated from values from the accelerations of the dummy and the struck-vehicles.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.156-177
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• 1999

The current method of rate adjustment for inflation is based on the evaluation of the financial performance of hospitals. The method has the disadvantage such as too complicated, expensive process as well as low reliability. This study, therefore, develops the 'Korean Medical Insurance Economic Index(MIEI)' as a new model for the rate adjustment with the use of the macro economic indices. In addition, we calculate the 1992∼1998 rate adjustment with the MIEI, and examines the validity of the MIEI by comparing with the conventional method. Medical costs are classified into nine categories : physician salaries, nurse·pharmacist·medical technician salaries, assistants & others salaries, material cost(by imports), material cost(by domestics), depreciation & rent paid(by imports), depreciation & rent paid(by domestics), power utilities, other administrative costs. Then the category weight which is the ratio of category in the total cost is calculated. Macro economic indices are selected for each cost category in order to reflect the concept of the each cost category and inflation during the year of 1992∼1998. Finally MIEI which integrate all category according to the category weight and selected macro indices is calculated. The mean of hospital MIEI which weighting by amount paid by insurers was cacluated. The result from the application of empirical data to the MIEI model is very similar to that of the current method. Furthermore, this method is very simple and also easy to get social consensus. This MIEI model can be replaced the current method based on the analysis of the financial performance for the adjustment of medical fees.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.806-816
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• 2017

Purpose: As comprehensive nursing care service has gradually expanded, it has become necessary to explore the various opinions about it. The purpose of this study is to explore the large amount of text data regarding comprehensive nursing care service extracted from online news and social media by applying a semantic network analysis. Methods: The web pages of the Korean Nurses Association (KNA) News, major daily newspapers, and Twitter were crawled by searching the keyword 'comprehensive nursing care service' using Python. A morphological analysis was performed using KoNLPy. Nodes on a 'comprehensive nursing care service' cluster were selected, and frequency, edge weight, and degree centrality were calculated and visualized with Gephi for the semantic network. Results: A total of 536 news pages and 464 tweets were analyzed. In the KNA News and major daily newspapers, 'nursing workforce' and 'nursing service' were highly rated in frequency, edge weight, and degree centrality. On Twitter, the most frequent nodes were 'National Health Insurance Service' and 'comprehensive nursing care service hospital.' The nodes with the highest edge weight were 'national health insurance,' 'wards without caregiver presence,' and 'caregiving costs.' 'National Health Insurance Service' was highest in degree centrality. Conclusion: This study provides an example of how to use atypical big data for a nursing issue through semantic network analysis to explore diverse perspectives surrounding the nursing community through various media sources. Applying semantic network analysis to online big data to gather information regarding various nursing issues would help to explore opinions for formulating and implementing nursing policies.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.190-198
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• 2009

Objectives : The objective of this study is to estimate the economic costs of cancer on society. Methods : We estimated the economic burden of people with cancer in South Korea. To perform the analysis, we reviewed the records of people who were cancer patients and those who were newly diagnosed with cancer. The data was compiled from the National Health Insurance Corporation, which included the insurance claims database, a list of cancer patients, a database that records the cancer rates, the Korea Central Cancer Registry Center s cancer patient registry database and the Korea National Statistical Office s causes of death database. We classified the costs as related to cancer into direct costs and indirect costs, and we estimated each cost. Direct costs included both medical and non-medical care expenses and the indirect costs consisted of morbidity, mortality and the caregiver's time costs. Results : The total economic costs of cancer in South Korea stood at 14.1 trillion won in 2005. The largest amount of the cost 7.4 trillion won, was the mortality costs. Following this were the morbidity costs (3.2 trillion won), the medical care costs (2.2 trillion won), the non-medical care costs (1.1 trillion won) and the costs related to the caregiver's time (100 billion won). As a result, the economic cost of cancer to South Korea is estimated to be between 11.6 trillion won to 14.1 trillion won for the year 2005. Conclusions : We need to reduce the cancer burden through encouraging people to undergo early screening for cancer and curing it in the early stage of cancer, as well as implementing policies to actively prevent cancer.

• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.60-65
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• 2016

Objectives The purpose of this study is to emphasize the importance of preventing precocious puberty. This study assessed current number of the patients with early puberty and their medical expenses from 2010 to 2015. Methods Using the data from Korean Statistical Information Service and Heathcare Bigdata Hub, number of patients diagnosed with precocious puberty by gender, age, and year from 2010 to 2015 were reviewed. Also, annual medical insurance expenses and the incidence of leuprorelin use were reviewed. Results Number of the patients with precocious puberty has increased from 29,251 in 2010 to 75,945 in 2015. Total medical insurance expenses have increased from 25,716,431 won in 2010 to 56,367,981 won in 2015. The use of lueprorelin also has increased annually from 11,097,590,000 won in 2010 to 21,617,585,000 won in 2015. Conclusions As a result, the patients diagnosed with precocious puberty are increasing in number, and their medical costs have been rising as well. It may be necessary to control the environmental causes of precocious puberty to reduce not only the physical and psychosocial health problems, but also the social costs.