• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.26 no.3 s.43
• /
• pp.400-411
• /
• 1993

The aim of this study is to analyze the variations among hospitals and hospital groups in resource use and procedures of diagnostic and therapeutic process, such as laboratory tests, radiologic examinations, tissue diagnosis, timing of surgery after admission, the time required for operation. The study was performed for five procedures including cesarean section (C/S), appendectomy, cholecystectomy, cataract extraction, and pediatric pneumonia. The 2,316 subjects were selected from medical insurance claims list, and from this list 413 cases were sampled for medical record review. The patterns of resource utilization and process of treatment were described according to hospitals and characteristics of hospital groups. The major results were as follows : 1. The numbers of laboratory and radiologic tests showed significant difference among hospitals and hospital groups. In case of hospital groups, we could find tendencies of more tests with increasing hospital bed size. 2. In general, the proportion of operative cases evaluated by tissue diagnosis postoperatively among all operations ranged from 28.3% to 100%. The proportion varied among hospital groups, of which general hospital A group(more than 15 specialty) showed the highest proportion. 3. Post-admission delay until operation and the time required for operative procedure were not invariable among hospitals and hospital groups. The duration of operation in tertiary hospitals was slightly shorter than general hospitals, with varying statistical significance. We could find that probably there were differences of quality among hospitals in some components of procedures, which suggested that the implementation of quality assurance activities would be mandatory. In this study, we simply described the patterns of resource utilization and some features of clinical process, with institution of the need for advanced studies with in-depth analyses for each component of diagnosis and treatment procedures.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.1-23
• /
• 2002

This study examined the influence of the separation of prescribing and dispensing roles(SPD) policy implemented in Korea in July 2000, especially on the change in the net profit of medical institutions. Using the data set from the Korea's National Health Insurance and the previous research, this study elicited the following main results. First, tertiary care institutions was estimated to lose about 631 billion won after the SPD policy. Second, general hospitals and hospitals gained about 557 billion and 564 billion won, respectively. Third, it is shown that clinics also gained 389-659 billion won. Finally, however, the change in net profit of medical institutions after the SPD policy largely depends on different estimation models. Moreover, it also varies from the assumptions on the price differential of a reimbursable drug which worked as cross-subsidy to insufficient physician's fee before the SPD policy. Despite such limitations as lack of data outside of the National Health Insurance's coverage, this study differs from others. This is the first research to explore the effect of the SPD policy on different types of medical institutions and to attempt to purely focus on the SPD policy. In this study, we can draw the policy implication that preparing for a policy change, the government should set up the policy evaluation system to collect the concerned data and develop the methodologies in advance to the policy implementation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.39-47
• /
• 2019

Background and Objectives : Pediatric vocal health problems are relatively common. However, it is not yet well studied whether uniform diagnosis and treatment is done properly in South Korea. The purpose of this study was to investigate the methods that the Korean speech therapists use to diagnose and treat pediatric voice problem. Materials and Method : An anonymous online questionnaire was administered to 32 speech language therapists registered at the Korean laryngeal speech linguistics society detailing demographics, employment institution, general management of pediatric patients with vocal problem including assessment and treatment procedures. Results : Current practice patterns were analyzed on 32 speech language therapists providing services in South Korea mostly working at tertiary university hospital. One third of pediatric patients were assessed without proceeding to treatment. One fifth of patients were treated without assessment. Perceptual assessment was the main pretreatment assessment methods used. Treatment was done in the following order : Voice rest, SOVT, yawn-sigh and resonant voice. Post-treatment evaluation was used in the following order : Instrumental assessment, clinical judgment, and recording comparison. Conclusion : Speech language therapists practice in South Korea mostly follows the ASHA practice guidelines. However, there are still great amount of cases in which only the evaluation was done without appropriate treatment. Further research is needed to make SPLs more systematic and efficient for evaluating and treating pediatric vocal patients.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
• /
• v.49 no.8
• /
• pp.882-888
• /
• 2006

Purpose : Bacteremia is one of the major concerns in the treatment of pediatric cancer patients. This study was to determine the etiologic agents and the pattern of antibiotic susceptibilities in a single tertiary medical center. Methods : We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of the cases of bacteremia in pediatric cancer patients from 1998 to 2005 in Keimyung University Dongsan Medical Center. Results : There were 62 cases of bacteremia from 44 patients. Gram-positive organisms(48.3%) were more common than gram-negative organisms(38.7%) or fungi(13%). Among gram-positive organisms, Staphylococcus epidermidis was the most common etiologic agent(63.3%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus(16.7%), ${\alpha}$-hemolytic Streptococcus(16.7%), and Streptococcus mitis(3.3%). Among gram-negative organisms, Alcaligenes xylosoxidans was the most common agent(41.7%) and the other organisms were Klebsiella pneumoniae(20.8%), Stenotrophomonas maltophilia(12.5%), Acinetobacter baumanii(8.2%), etc. In febrile neutropenic patients, however, K. pneumoniae was the most common cause of gram-negative bacteremia. All of the isolated K. pneumoniae in our center produced extended-spectrum beta-lactamase and were related with high mortality. S. aureus, S. epidermidis, and Streptococcus species were all susceptible to vancomycin and teicoplanin. Most staphylococci were resistant to penicillin and oxacillin. Most of the gram-negative organisms were susceptible to imipenem. Conclusion : Gram-positive organisms were more commonly isolated than gram-negative organisms in pediatric cancer patients like other studies. We could obtained valuable information on the choice of proper antibiotics in our institution. Further studies will be needed to explain the prevalence of A. xylosoxidans in our center.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.1811-1815
• /
• 2014

Background: In clinical trials with no upper age limit, the proportion of older patients is usually small, probably reflecting the more conservative approach adopted by clinicians when treating the elderly. An exploratory analysis of elderly patients in the RECORD-1 Trial showed that patients ${\geq}$ 65 y.o. had superior median PFS than overall RECORD-1 population (5.4 months and 4.9 months, respectively). We investigated the efficacy, relative benefit and safety of Everolimus (EVE) as sequential therapy after failure of VEGFr-TKI therapy for older patients with metastatic renal cell cancer (mRCC), in daily practice. Materials and Methods: 172 consecutive IRB approved patients with mRCC (median age 65, M:F 135/37, 78% clear cell) who received salvage EVE at 39 tertiary institutions between October 2009 and August 2011 were included in this analysis. Some 31% had progressed on sunitinib, 22% on sorafenib, 1% on axitinib, 41% on sequential therapy, and 5% had received other therapy. Patients with brain metastases were not included and 95% of the patients had a ECOG (Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group) performance status (PS) of 0 or 1. Previous radiotherapy was an exclusion criterion, but prior chemotherapy was permitted. Adequate organ function and hematologic parameters were mandatory. EVE administration was approved by the institutional review board at each participating institution and signed informed consent was obtained from all patients. Results: Median time of the whole cohort to last follow-up was 3.5 months (range 0.4-15.2 months). Forty four percent were continuing to take EVE at last followup. There were 86 (50%) patients ${\geq}$ 65 y.o. and 86 (50%) <65 y.o. The percentage of patients who showed PR/SD was higher in the older group than in the younger one (5.9%/61.2% vs 1.2%/46.5%, respectively). Median survival of older patients was also significantly longer (3.5 +/- 0.31 vs 3.1 +/- 0.34, hazard ratio=0.45, CI; 0.255-0.802). Analysis using Cox regression model adjusted for gender, PS, number of metastases, site of metastases, histology, smoking history and age detected an association between age and PFS (p=0.011). The frequency of adverse events in elderly patients treated with EVE was no greater than that in younger patients, although such toxicity may have had a greater impact on their quality of life. Conclusions: Older patients should not generally be excluded from accepted therapies (mTOR inhibitors after failure of VEGFr-TKI therapy) for mRCC.

• Korean Journal of Comparative Education
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.187-209
• /
• 2017

The purpose of this study was to highlight the necessity of a conceptual reestablishment of world university evaluations. The hitherto most well-known and validated world university evaluation systems such as Times Higher Education (THE), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) or Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) primarily assess big universities with quantitative evaluation indicators and performance results in the rankings. Those Systems have instigated a kind of elitism in higher education and neglect numerous small or local institutions of higher education, instead of providing stakeholders with comprehensive information about the real possibilities of tertiary education so that they can choose an institution that is individually tailored to their needs. Also, the management boards of universities and policymakers in higher education have partly been manipulated by and partly taken advantage of the elitist ranking systems with an economic emphasis, as indicated by research-centered evaluations and industry-university cooperation. To supplement such educational defects and to redress the lack of world university evaluation systems, a new system called 'U-Multirank' has been implemented with the financial support of the European Commission since 2012. U-Multirank was designed and is enforced by an international team of project experts led by CHE(Centre for Higher Education/Germany), CHEPS(Center for Higher Education Policy Studies/Netherlands) and CWTS(Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University/Netherlands). The significant features of U-Multirank, compared with e.g., THE and ARWU, are its qualitative, multidimensional, user-oriented and individualized assessment methods. Above all, its website and its assessment results, based on a mobile operating system and designed simply for international users, present a self-organized and evolutionary model of world university evaluation systems in the digital and global era. To estimate the universal validity of the redefinition of the world university evaluation system using U-Multirank, an epistemological approach will be used that relies on Edgar Morin's Complexity Theory and Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science.