• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.39-49
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• 2013

Purpose: To analyze the structure of Korean nurse labor market and examine its effect on hospital nurse staffing. Methods: Secondary data were obtained from Statistics Korea, Education Statistics, and Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service and Patient Survey. Intensity of monopsony in the nurse labor market was measured by Herfindahl Hirshman Index (HHI). Hospital nurse staffing level was divided into high and low. While controlling for confounding factors such as inpatient days and severity mix of patients, effects of characteristics of nurse labor markets on nurse staffing levels were examined using multi-level logistic regressions. Results: For characteristics of nurse labor markets, metropolitan areas had high intensity of monopsony, while the capital area had competitive labor market and the unemployed nurse rate was higher than other areas. Among hospital characteristics, bed occupancy rate was significantly associated with nurse staffing levels. Among characteristics of nurse labor markets, the effect of HHI was indeterminable. Conclusion: The Korean nurse labor market has different structure between the capital and other metropolitan areas. But the effect of the structure of nurse labor market on nurse staffing levels is indeterminable. Characteristics such as occupancy rate and number of beds are significantly associated with nurse staffing levels. Further study in support of the effect of nurse labor market is needed.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.174-183
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• 2015

Purpose: This study was conducted to explore the impact of nurse staffing level and oral care on pneumonia in elderly inpatients in long-term care hospitals (LTCHs). Methods: Data were obtained from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Services (HIRA) including the profiles of LTCHs, monthly patient assessment reports and medical report survey data of pneumonia patients by HIRA in the fourth quarter of 2010. The sample consisted of 37 LTCHs and 6,593 patients. Results: Patient per nurse staff (OR=1.43, CI=1.22~1.68) and no oral care (OR=1.29, CI=1.01~1.64) were significantly related with hospital acquired pneumonia. The difference in percent of oral care by hospital was not significant between high and low group in nurse staffing level. Conclusion: In order to reduce the occurrence of pneumonia in eldery patients, effective nursing interventions are not only required but also nurse staffing levels that enable nurses to provide the intervention.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 2014

Purpose: This study was conducted to explore the impact of registered nurse/nurses' aid (RN/NA) staffing and turnover rate on inpatient health outcomes in long term care hospitals. Methods: A secondary analysis was done of national data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Services including evaluation of long term care hospitals in October-December 2010 and hospital general characteristics in July-September 2010. Final analysis of data from 610 hospitals included RN/NA staffing, turnover rate of nursing staff and 5 patient health outcome indicators. Results: Finding showed that, when variables of organization and community level were controlled, patients per RN was a significant indicator of decline in ADL for patients with dementia, and new pressure ulcer development in the high risk group and worsening of pressure ulcers. Patients per NA was a significant indicator for new pressure ulcer development in the low risk group. Turnover rate was not significant for any variable. Conclusion: To maintain and improve patient health outcomes of ADL and pressure ulcers, policies should be developed to increase the staffing level of RN. Studies are also needed to examine causal relation of NA staffing level, RN staffing level and patient health outcomes with consideration of the details of nursing practice.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.413-420
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• 2008

Purpose: To examine the relationship between nurse staffing level and nurse perception of nursing performance. Method: The subjects of this study were 724 nurses from 70 medical or surgical wards in 23 hospitals from February to March 2006. A self-reporting questionnaire, which was developed by the researcher through a preceding study, was used. In data analysis, SAS program was utilized for descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, and Tukey test. Results: The mean score of the nursing performance was 53.3. The mean of bed-to nurse ratio was 3.39:1. The study revealed a negative correlation between bed-to nurse ratio and the nurses' perception of nursing performance. There was a significant relationship between above 3.5:1 and below 2.5:1(F=4.59, p=0.010). Conclusion: We found that the higher the nurse staffing, the better the nursing performance. It is recommended that future research measures nurses' performance and nursing organizational performance using objective measurement tools including clinical indicators.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.327-335
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• 2011

Purpose: The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of medical staffing level as bed-to-medical staff ratio on patient outcomes as length of stay (LOS) among hospitals in Korea. Methods: Two hundred and fifty one hospitals participated in the study between January and March 2008. Data for the study was requested by an electronic data interchange from the Health Insurance Review Agency in 2008. In data analysis, SPSS WIN 15.0 program was utilized for descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficients, and multiple regression. Results: The mean score for length of stay was 13.6 days. The mean of operating bed-to-nurse ratio was 7.93:1. The predicting factors for LOS were bed-to-nurse's aide ratio, bed-to doctor's ratio, severely ill patient rate, and hospital type. These factors explained 28.9% of the variance in patient outcomes. Conclusion: This study results indicate that the relationship between medical staffing level and patient outcomes is important in the improvement of the quality of patient care. Thus, improvements in the quality of the nurse practice environment could improve patient outcomes for hospitalized patients.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.183-201
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to examine the current staffing practices in public libraries and to analyze the relevance of legal standards of public library staffing. It analyzed the national library statistical data to obtain the national average staffing rate, reviewed related literature to understand the rationales that established the key attributes that construct the current legal standards, and compared the placement rates of the three standards, namely the current legal standards, Korean Library Association's standards, and IFLA staffing standards, to determine the optimacy of the legal standards. It found the current placement rate in the legal standard was only 18.2%, marking the lowest rates among the three compared standards, indicating the current legal standards being unnecessarily high. The study attributes the problem to the structure of the current legal standards that calculate the staffing size based on the building and collection size rather than service populations. The findings of this study suggest a revision of the current standard based on service population while retaining the minimum staffing of three librarians even the smallest public library unit.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.256-265
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• 2016

Purpose: This study examined differences in nursing care activity, work performance outcomes, and job satisfaction associated with upgrading nurse staffing of a nurse-to-patients ratio. Methods: Descriptive design was used in this study. In total, 148 medical and surgical nurses were recruited from one university hospital. Three instruments were used for data collection: Scale of Nursing Care Activity, Nurses' Work Performance Outcome Measurement Scale and Nurses' Job Satisfaction Scale. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, and paired t-test. Results: There were significant differences in nursing care activity (t=-5.06, p<.001), in work performance outcomes (t=-5.46, p<.001) and in job satisfaction (t=4.61, p<.001) when the grading for the nursing staff was changed from three to two indicating increasing number of nurses. Conclusion: The findings from this study showed that there were more nursing care activities, better work performance outcomes, and higher job satisfaction when numbers of nurses were increased. The changes in the scale to evaluate nursing staff influence nursing activities, work performance and job satisfaction.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.559-569
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• 2003

Purpose: The purpose was to investigate nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes(nosocomial infection, patient fall, pressure ulcer). Method: The subjects of this study were 305 nurses from 20 general hospitals who worked at 39 medical and surgical wards. Self-reporting questionnaire which was developed by the writer through preceding study was used. In data analysis, SPSS WIN 10.0. program was utilized for descriptive statistics, ANOVA. Result: The mean of patient-to-nurse ration was 5.2:1. 65% among 20 hospitals was over 300 beds, 90 was located in urban area and 55 was private hospitals. Patient-to-nurse ration of hospitals in under 300 beds or rural area or private ownership was lower than hospitals in 300 beds or urban area or public ownership. 89.9 among 39 wards was medical or surgical wards. The mean of length of stay, 8-14 days got a majority and showed higher patient-to-nurse ration. Of the general characteristics, rural was significantly hight to patient fall(F=3.205, p<.05), medical unit was significantly high to patient fall, pressure ulcer(patient fall: F=8.890, p<.001, pressure ulcer: F=3.399, p<.05) and over 15 days was significantly higher than under 14 days of the mean of length of stay. And there was significant relationship between over 6.0:1 and over 4.0:1 to less than 5.0:1(F=4.817,p<.01). Conclusion: This study has shown a relationship between patient-to-nurse ration and patient fall using not objective research tool but self-reporting questionnaire. Therefore further research is needed to study using objective research tool. Based on this study, the effect of nurse staffing levels on patient outcome also has to be studied.

• Journal of Korean Critical Care Nursing
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2017

Purpose: This study aimed to estimate the appropriate nurse staffing ratio in intensive care units (ICUs) by measuring nursing workload based on patient's severity and needs, using the Korean Patient Classification System for critical care nurses. Methods: The data were collected from January 18 to February 29, 2016 using a standardized checklist by observation or self-report. During the study period, 723 patients were included to be categorized from I to IV using the patient classification system. Measurement of total nursing workload on a shift was calculated in terms of hours based on the time and motion method by using tools for surveying nursing activities. The nursing activities were categorized as direct nursing care, indirect nursing care, and personal time. Total of 127 cases were included in measuring direct nursing time and 18 nurses participated in measuring indirect and personal time. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: Two patients were classified into Class I (11.1%), 5 into Class II (27.8%), 9 into Class III (50%), and two into Class IV (11.1%). The amount of direct nursing care required for Class IV (513.7 min) was significantly more than that required for Class I (135.4 min). Direct and indirect nursing care was provided more often during the day shift as compared to the evening or night shifts. These findings provided the rationale for determining the appropriate ratio for nursing staff per shift based on the nursing workload in each shift. Conclusions: An appropriate ratio of nurse staffing should be ensured in ICUs to re-arrange the workload of nurses to help them provide essential direct care for patients.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.109-122
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• 2018

The composite lognormal-generalized Pareto distribution (LN-GPD) is a mixture of right-truncated lognormal and GPD for a given threshold value. Scollnik (Scandinavian Actuarial Journal, 2007, 20-33, 2007) shows that the composite LN-GPD is adequate to describe body distribution and heavy-tailedness. This paper considers time-varying modeling of the LN-GPD based on local polynomial maximum likelihood estimation. Time-varying model provides significant detailed information of time dependent data, hence it can be applied to disciplines such as service engineering for staffing and resources management. Our work also extends to Beirlant and Goegebeur (Journal of Multivariate Analysis, 89, 97-118, 2004) in the sense of losing no data by including truncated lognormal distribution. Our proposed method is shown to perform adequately in simulation. Real data application to the service time of the Israel bank call center shows interesting findings on the staffing policy.