• Health Policy and Management
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2008

How health care providers compete and how competition among them affects their behavior are crucial questions in theory and health policy. In ordinary markets, competition improves social welfare, However in health care markets facing uncertainty and information asymmetry, competition can take the form of wasteful quality competition and result in cost increase. The purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics of hospital service markets and examine the impact of hospital competition on hospital behavior, more specifically hospital cost and the size of personnel. Based on patient discharge data of 2002 by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, and health insurance EDI claims data of 2002, this study measures the degree of competition in the inpatient service market of hospitals, using variable radius method and Herfindahl index. The result of the study shows that the hospital service market consists of on average 3.13 government administrative units(shi, gun, or gu). Compared with hospitals, general or general specialized hospitals cover larger markets and operate in more competitive markets. Nearly 60% of patients use hospitals, which are not located in their government administrative units, meaning that market definition based on variable radius is better than the conventional method of market definition based on government administrative units. The results of multivariate analysis show that competition is not associated with high cost index of hospitals. But hospitals in more competitive markets employ larger(more intensive) input of personnel per 100 beds, implying that hospital competition in Korea can have the form of quality and cost-increasing competition.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.35-58
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• 2010

Portal sites have been providing diverse services to attract new users and retain existing customers. Recently, they also added new services and increased quality of the services they provide to secure more customers. It is, however, not clear how people actually react to such activities. We wanted to understand the mechanism associated with users' continued usage intention of current Portal site. We assumed search, e-mail, information, community, e-commerce services as key services provided by most Portal sites and considered valuable by many customers. The quality of these services may directly affect users' continued usage intention. However, we can also assume that attractive alternatives and switching cost may have some influence on users' continued usage intention. Therefore, in this study, key variables pertaining to the quality of key services provided by Portal sites, attractive alternatives, and switching cost were examined to explain the dynamics of users' continued usage intention. An empirical study based on 891 survey responses showed the importance of the quality of key services for users' continued usage intention. Switching cost also demonstrated strong association with users' continued usage intention. However, attractive alternatives did not show a significant association with users' continued usage intention. We also found that the variable attractive alternatives moderated the relationship between the quality of search service and users' continued usage intention and the relationship between the quality of information service and users' continued usage intention. On the other hand, the variable switching cost showed a moderating effect on the relationship between the quality of e-mail service and users' continued usage intention and the relationship between the quality of community service and users' continued usage intention. This study implies that Portal sites need to make efforts not only to improve the quality of key services but also to consider attractiveness of other Portal sites' services and switching cost to secure more customers.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.229-240
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• 2017

Background: This study purposed to analyze the spatial accessibility of women in childbearing age to the healthcare organizations (HCOs) providing delivery services in Gangwon-do. Methods: Network analysis was applied to assess the spatial accessibility based on the travel time and road travel distance. Travel time and travel distance were measured between the location of HCOs and the centroid of the smallest administrative areas, eup, myeon, and dong in Gangwon-do. Korean Transport Database Center provided road network GIS (Geographic Information System) Database in 2015 and it was used to build the network dataset. Two types of network analysis, service area analysis and origin-destination (OD)-cost matrix analysis, applied to the created network dataset. Service area analysis defined all-accessible areas that are within a specified time, and OD-cost matrix analysis measured the least-cost paths from the HCOs to the centroids. The visualization of the number of the HCOs and the number of women in childbearing age on the Ganwon-do map and network analysis were performed with ArcGIS ver. 10.0 (ESRI, Redlands, CA, USA). Results: Twenty HCOs were providing delivery services in Gangwon-do in 2016. Over 50% of the women in childbearing age were aged more than 35 years. Service area analysis found that 89.56% of Gangwon-do area took less than 60 minutes to reach any types of HCOs. For tertiary hospitals, about 74.37% of Gangwon-do area took more than 60 minutes. Except Wonju-si and Hoengseong-gun, other regions took more than 60 minutes to reach the tertiary hospital. Especially, Goseong-gun, Donghae-si, Samcheok-si, Sokcho-si, Yanggu-gun, Cheorwon-gun, and Taebaek-si took more than 100 minutes to the tertiary hospital. Conclusion: This study provided that the accessibility toward the tertiary hospital was limited and it may cause problems in high-risk delivery patients such as over 35 years. Health policy makers will need to handle the obstetric accessibility issues in Gangwon-do.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.27 no.1 s.45
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• pp.135-144
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• 1994

The purpose of this study compares determinants of eldery medical cost inflation with those of other age groups by analysing aggregated data with a deterministic model. The deterministic model of per capita medical cost inflation consists of increases in price, intensity of services, and medical utilization. We used a time series data($1985{\sim}1991$) from National Medical Insurance and analyzed by age groups. In total population, the average increase rates of inpatient and outpatient medical costs were respectively 9.5% and 8.8% during 6 years and the major cause of inflation was the increase in service intensity in both of inpatient and outpatient cases. But in the population of 65 years old and over, the average increase rates of inpatient and outpatient medical costs were respectively 13.8% and 14.8% and the major cause of inflation was the increase in per-capita medical utilization in both of inpatient and outpatient cases. Also, the increase in service intensity of 65 years old and over was the highest of other age groups. This pattern was similar during study periods. We concluded that the level of medical cost-inflation and the determinants in eldery was the highest-especially in per capita medical utilization, therfore, the inflation of medical costs in eldery will be higher than other age groups for the furture in Korea.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.26 no.3 s.43
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• pp.442-456
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• 1993

Financial stability is the foremost prerequisite for the continuous growth and development of hospitals. The present study aimed at developing a deterministic model using the factors which affect the hospitals profitability and at discovering which factor affected the hospital profitability. The study conducted questionnaire surveys on all general hospitals, with the exception of special hospitals, with over eighty hospital beds. Of the 274 subject hospitals, 136 of them, consituting 49.6% of the whole, were used in the study. The results are as follows. 1. In the deterministic model, outpatient revenue was affected more by the number of physician visits than by outpatient service intensity. Inpatient revenue was found to be affected more by the number of discharged patients than by inpatient service intensity. However, the increase rate of the service intensity not only contributed in stepping up the operating margin by $4{\sim}8%$ in outpatient and $3{\sim}6%$ in inpatient, but it was statistically significant. 2. Among the factors which determined the operating cost within the deterministic model, the number of patients had a greater impact on the operating cost than the resource consumption per patient. 3. The resource consumption per patient were proved to have the greatest effect on the profitability within the probabilistic model. The management cost per adjusted patient, in particular, was proven to have a statistically significant effect on the profitability in all hospitals.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.15-42
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• 2014

Cloud storage service has the potential to be a core infrastructure for the future mobile and Internet service; thus related service providers have been investing in it and trying to attract as many users as possible. In addition, those need to find out what motivates the users to keep using their service not only to attract new customers but also to secure their subscribers. Therefore, this study will examine its relationship with user's motivation based on the extended TAM model with external variables for objective research about continuous use of cloud storage service. As a result, it was found that personal innovativeness, self efficacy, functional attributes, and psychological switching cost influence the continuous use of cloud storage service. Also, it is expected they can guide service providers to the right track when setting up their business strategy in the future.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.95-103
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• 2020

Purpose: This study was to examine whether a health care model that provides comprehensive medical services based on population groups to members of the medical cooperative is applicable as a policy alternative in terms of medical use and cost. Methods: Data were derived from National Health Insurance claim data in 2019. We compared the medical volume and expenses of patients who visited social cooperative-type medical clinics with other patients, control group who visited other clinics in a local area. Results: The average number of visit days was 25.3 days in social cooperative-type medical clinics, more than 24.2 days in the control group (p=.004). However, the average medical cost per visit was KRW 46 thousand in social cooperative-type medical clinics, which was significantly lower than KRW 51 thousand in the control group (p<.001), and the total medical cost was also KRW 16.1 billion in social cooperative-type medical clinics and KRW 16.9 billion in the control group. Conclusion: We identified that a population-based health care model might change patients' behaviors to health care services and decrease total medical cost. Further population based experiment is needed to develop alternative healthcare model.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.595-604
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• 2008

This study was conducted to evaluate the menu of a Japanese restaurant in a first class tourism hotel. The calculations used for the menu analysis were conducted using MS Excel 2003. Several previous studies have been conducted to analyze menus. For example, Pavesic used of the weighted contribution margins (WCM) and potential food cost (PFC%) to evaluate menus, while Kasavana & Smith used the mix margin (MM%) and unit contribution margin (CM) to evaluate menus. The menu engineering method focused on the customer's viewpoints, while the Cost/Margin analysis method considered the manager's viewpoints. The menus that need continuous keeping Kasavana & Smith (Star) and Pavesic (Standard) included 'Assorted sashimi with side dishes (big), 'Lunch box special', 'Tempura course', 'Broiled Spanish mackerel and side dishes', 'Shrimp tempura', 'Special sushi', 'Seafood Udong', 'Buckwheat noodles'. The results of this study should increase customer satisfaction and profits at the Japanese Restaurant.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.64-73
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• 2012

The purpose of this research is to practically figure out the relationship between Natural Forest service quality on user's satisfaction and demand to revisit. The results are as follows: First, the agent service quality, facility, accessibility, and cost as factors of the Natural Forest service quality. These are all influenced positively for visitor's satisfaction by priority of agent service> accessibility> facility> cost. Second, the agent service quality, facility, accessibility are all influenced positively on visitor's demand on revisit by priority of agent service> accessibility> facility. But the cost doesn't make an influence on revisiting. Third, the visitor's satisfaction made it as an influence on revisiting demand positively. These are the results for the research m service quality, user's satisfaction, facility, accessibility, and cost of the 5 Natural Forest over the Kyung-buk Province. We finally figured out the agent service quality is the most important factor to improve the quality of Natural Forest facility. We are sure about the improvement of the agent service quality which will make it successful.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.244-261
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• 2000

Background : In order to cope with changes in the management environment at hospitals, increased interests are drawn in patient foodservice system on Continuous Quality Improvement Activity as the method of approaching a quality food service and effective management. Thus, as a part of this activity, this study was conducted to evaluate job flow improvement that was already performed and the results of that process at the dietetic department of a university hospital, focusing on improving management. Method : On February 15 of 1998. the dietetic department formed a job flow-improvement to decide on the priority of job flow improvement, and prepared specific action strategies and schedule of the priority: after a 5 month process period, job improvement achieved on June 15. 1998. Also, economic achievement of the task was evaluated through labor productivity analysis and cost-benefit analysis. Results : The patient food service system which was managed decentralized at the present hospital was centralized, some steps of the food service process were integrated, and quality of patient food was improved. Also, as a solution of the problems expected when conducting job flow improvement was made on food service equipments and utensils. The result of evaluating the job flow improvement that labor productivity improved by 18.2% compared to before the improvement and the result of the analysis of cost-benefit showed that Benefit-Cost (B/C) ratio was 2.22. showing financial merit on the investment. Conclusions : Continuous Quality Improvement Activity needs to be initiated and conducted in the future in various areas of hospital foodservice system in order to actively adopt to ever changing hospital management environment. In order to achieve this goal, many researches and more efforts need to be put in by people in charge of hospital food service management, and interests and support are needed from hospital policy makers.