• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.71-87
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• 2011

Objective : The present study is aimed at providing basic data to help oriental medical hospitals devise efficient operational plans by analyzing the medical expenses of in-patients in an oriental medical hospital and the factors affecting such expenses. Methods : PASW 18.0 was used to analyze the medical insurance program data of 929 patients who were discharged from a university oriental medical hospital(with 105 sick-beds) during the period from January 1 to December 31, 2010 after treatment under the coverage of health insurance and medical aid. Results : 1) Of all the patients hospitalized, 63.3% were females, their mean age was 52.73 years old, and 87.7% was covered by the health insurance program. The biggest number or 31.2% of the patients were treated by the department of acupuncture, 31.5% suffered mainly from the diseases of musculoskeletal system and connective tissues, and the average length of stay at the hospital was 19.49 days. 2) There were statistically significant differences in total medical expenses by age, clinical department in charge, principal diagnosis, and number of days hospitalized while daily average medical expenses differed depending on age, type of medical security, clinical department, principal diagnosis, and number of days staying at the hospital. 3) Total medical expenses were found significantly influenced by age, type of medical security, clinical department, principal diagnosis, and number of days hospitalized(explanatory power : 95.9%), whereas type of medical security, clinical department and principal diagnosis turned out to exercise significant influence on the daily average medical expenses(explanatory power : 26.9%). Conclusion : Oriental medical hospitals are suggested to make efforts to ensure geographical and economical accessibility for their main clients, the elderly and middle-aged, as well as to improve satisfaction of the clients with the medical service provided. They are also encouraged to work out systems to specialize in treatment with a focus on chronic degenerative and adult diseases. In addition, they are expected to try to enhance people's awareness of oriental medicine in an attempt to diversify the brackets of clients and increase frequency of their utilization.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.259-268
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• 2015

This research grasped the difference of between the daily medical expenses and the medical expenses reduction rate also the cause of change. In the centre, it was conducted in order to offer the necessary basic data to a recuperation pay management solution's establishment. This research surveyed across the country's urban region 50-general hospital's the infective enteritis disease for a year. Then it was conducted the average daily medical expenses and the average medical expenses reduction rate as a distinguishable survey that is a hospitalization and an outpatient the result is followed. The inpatient daily medical expenses correlated with the total number of medical institution personnel, and the outpatient daily medical expenses correlated with the number of beds.. Inpatient medical expense reduction rate was correlated with number of beds and the total number of medical institution personnel. The interaction between medical institution information and daily medical expenses was found to have a positive (+) effect on the total number of medical institution personnel, as well as the numbers of inpatients vs. outpatient. This research about the medical expense reduction rate and daily medical expense help medical institution's efficient, rational decision making and it will be an important basis of a priority recuperation pay's policy.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.80-89
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• 2015

Background: This study aims to identify the monthly average medical expenses of public pension recipients, and analyze the determinants of total health and medical expenses and Western and Oriental medicine expenses, medical service expenses, and medical supplies expenses. Methods: This study used the fifth year data of 2013 out of the raw data of the Korean Retirement and Income Study collected by the National Pension Research Institute. This study conducted t-test, analysis of variance, and linear regression to verify publicly the relevance between pension recipients' general characteristics and health and medical expenses status using IBM SPSS ver. 21.0 for data analysis. Results: It was analyzed that there is a difference in the spending of expenditure and health care costs according to public pension recipients. Medical expenses of the national pensioners was higher compared to the special corporate pensioners. The national pensioner is related expenditure size, education level, family members living together, residential areas, status of spouse, number of chronic illness, and status of limitation in daily life with psychological health status. Conclusion: Therefore, fairness does not occur fire to the medical use between the special corporate pensioners and national pensioners, aggressive of government such as health policy and financial support for the retiree pension policy that reflects the reality intervention would be required.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.118-138
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• 1999

This study presents the variations on drug utilization for outpatients' URI, gastritis. and hypertension by the type of hospital- tertiary hospital. general hospital. hospital. clinic. It investigated drug expenses. daily drug expenses. days of medication. the highest price of the drugs used. and the number of the different drugs used for each disease and type of hospital. This study also performed analysis to see how much the variations of variables related to drug use affect the variations of drug expenses. The dependent variable was drug expenses and the independent variables were days of medication. the average price of the drugs used. and the number of the different drugs used. Analysis of the drug utilization was performed on NFMI(National Federation of Medical Insurance) 1994 medical expense claim data. Patients with secondary diseases were excluded. In this study. 379 patients with URI, 386 patients with gastritis. 1.257 patients with hypertension were included. It was founded that there were large variation on drug utilization between the types of hospital for same diseases. Days of medication were longest in tertiary hospitals and shortest in hospitals or clinics. Clinics showed the lowest daily drug expenses in all of the diseases investigated. Daily drug expenses were highest in general hospitals or hospitals. which also tended to use drugs of higher price than other types of hospital. General hospitals and hospitals had larger variations in daily drug expenses and the highest price of drugs. It suggested that drug might be utilized overly in general hospitals and hospitals and some other factors might influence on drug utilization in these hospitals. It was found that the variations of drug expenses were affected by the variations of drug price and days of medication rather than the number of the different drugs. Then the strategy to reduce the variations of drug utilization and to improve the quality of drug utilization should focus on the drug price and days of medication. Further study is needed to assess the quality as well as the variation of drug utilization and to show the factors which affect them.

• Journal of Korean Physical Therapy Science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.129-140
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• 2002

This study intended to find out how the handicapped use medical aid, their satisfaction at using it and so on. First a preliminary survey(Apr. 20$\sim$24, 2002) was made for the handicapped who had been cured for rehabilitation by wearing medical aid at hospitals and welfare center in Jeonbuk region. Then total 120 subjects were asked to fill out a standardized questionnaire from May 15$\sim$22, 2002. Out of total 95 questionnaires collected, 84 questionnaires were analyzed except for 11 cases unsuitable for the intention of this study. The results can be outlined as follows: 1. In general characteristic, it was found that the causes of disability included disease(35 respondents; 41.7%), traffic accident(23 respondents, 27.4%) and so on. In addition, 1st handicap comprised the majority(32 respondents; 58.2%) in handicap grade and ankle foot orthosis(or b-k orthosis) was most often used as medical aid(28 respondents: 33.3%) 2. In particular, it was also shown that the 1st handicap mainly resulted from traffic accident(15 respondents, 27.3%) and post-disease disability (11 respondents, 20.0%). They wore medical aid for 1 year or less on the average, because they were hospitalized for cure, which showed statistically significant level(P<0.05). 3. It was found that total 69 respondents(82.1%) were more or less satisfied with their medical aids depending on the causes of disability, and total 46 respondents(83.6%) were satisfied with their aids according to their handicap grade, but there were no statistical significance. 4. Total 56(66.7%) respondents answered that they would purchase medical aid on their own expenses, when they became handicapped. And the price of medical aid ranged from $\300,000{\sim}400,000$(25 respondents: 29.8%) to \ 500,000 or more(24 respondents: 28.6%). It means that they purchased more or less expensive medical aid on their own expenses, which showed statistical significance(P<0.05). 5. If there was any failure of medical aid, 9 respondents(37.5%) answered that they would be serviced from medical companies, and 7 respondents(29.2%) would be serviced from medical aid manufacturers. Most respondents were serviced for their medical aids from related companies. For the question about the causes of dissatisfaction upon repair service, 11 respondents(45.8%) answered that existing service company provided unskilled repair services and other respondents answered that there was no spare part or higher service expenses than they thought. These answers had the statistical significance(P<0.05). However, 20 respondents(79.2%) answered that they were satisfied with the repair service, which means that most respondents are satisfied with the service. In view of the results as described above, it can be concluded that their handicap or disability results from disease or sequelae after traffic accident and most of the affected wear their own medical aid. In the future, it is required that the medical insurance should cover those medical aids, and the service for failed medical aids should be commissioned by technical serviceman to realize customized manufacture and repair service according to different causes so that the handicapped can enjoy more or less comfort and convenience in their daily lives without any extreme difficulty.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.72-109
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• 1999

This study is conducted to investigate the current status on the utilization of health care and plan for solving this problem. The claims data of the fiscal tear 1995 obtained from the regional health insurance society are used for the study. The main findings of the study are summarized as follows. Indexes(The Extremal Quotient(EQ), coefficients of variance(CV's))which represent the regional difference in the admission rate of the tertiary medical diagnosis group report that there is difference in quantity and quality of utilization of health care. The admission rate is lower in the big city areas, Kyoungkido, Kangwondo and Chunlapukdo. Even after age-sex adjustment, the admission rate is still low in Kangwondo, Chunlapukdo and Kyoungsangpukdo. The big city areas tend to have higher rates in the expenses per claim, hospital days per claim, and daily expenses but the rates are still low in some area in Kangwondo, Chunlanamdo and Kyoungsangpukdo. This result remains as same after age-sex adjustment. There is a large regional difference in average utilization rate for the tertiary hospital of the tertiary medical diagnosis group: 57.2%(SD 11.53). The utilization rates for the tertiary hospital in their large catchment area are 96.34%, 83.19% and 73.22% in each Kyoungin, Kyoungnam and Kyoungpuk areas whereas it is lower in a Chungpuk and Chungnam areas. The regional differences of health care utilization of the tertiary medical diagnosis group gave some relationships with their geographical characteristics such as socio-economic characteristics and supply factors of medical services. It is important that many medical policies should be developed in order to minimize and balance out the regional differences of health care utilization. The service allocation policy should include the reconstruction of manpower policy, developing the resource allocating formula, finding the self-sufficient catchment area and reforcing of public health services. Moreover, in order to achieve the balanced development by region, they should investigate and consider each county's microscopic properties under the consistent macrocopic policy. The further studies to find causes of regional difference are needed.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-20
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to find the determinant variables to make profitability in regional public hospitals. The data come from financial statements and annual reports of 34 regional public hospitals for five years (from year 2003 to year 2007). The T or F-test and hierarchical multiple regression analysis are used. The dependant variables are the profitability indicators, ordinary income to total asset and operating margin to gross revenue, and the independent variables are general characteristics, diagnosis and treatment patterns, financial and public benefits. The findings of this study are summarized as follows. First, Variables affecting the profitability indexes revealed from DEA results is the bed occupancy rate, number of hospitalized patients to outpatients, ratio of first medical examination for outpatients, number of daily patients per medical specialist, labor cost per patient and managerial expenses per patient. Second, the ordinary income to total asset representing the asset usage performance is affected by the average hospitalized days, bed occupancy rate, labor cost per patient and ratio of patients with medical insurance coverage. Third, the operating martin to gross revenue obtained from the actual operations of hospitals has its significance with the bed occupancy rate, number of hospitalized patients to outpatients, managerial expenses per patient and public benefit indicator. This study has some restriction not to use pannel data analysis, although it used data for five years. Accordingly, various additional studies should be done to supplement such problems.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.63-80
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• 2006

Public health oriental medical doctor has played a great role in providing oriental medical treatment and oriental medical health program with public health medical services, the basic infrastructure, however, is not sufficient. In this study, the researcher surveyed the treatment working or service condition of public health oriental medical doctor. 1. The payment, allowance of doctors are fixed upon the law and guideline according to the financial status of local government. The branch of public health center has more support like an official residence with expenses. 2. The public health center mainly has assitants and ratio of full-timer is more than the branch public health center without any assistants if any, they are temporary employee 3. The public health center has 5.22 beds while the branch has 3.14 beds. The daily average number of patient for public health center is 15.01 while the branch has 8.7 More than half of outpatients are over sixties with musculoskeletal disease. 4. Regarding the traveling clinic, the public health center put into more operation than the branch. The 3rd year serving public doctor gives negative about the traveling clinic much more than 1st and 2nd year serving public doctor. The treatment service condition of public doctor of the public health center is better than the branch doctor, but we are on the point of role-changing as health promotion and preventive treatment to bring up motivation, education and competence strengthening for execution the local-bound health program.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.28 no.2 s.50
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• pp.325-333
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• 1995

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy was introduced into Korea in 1990 and has been rapidly replacing open cholecystectomy when the indications were met. In this study a medical utilization and technology was assessed on the selected hospitalized patients with cholelithiasis who underwent open or laparoscopic cholecystectomy from April 1, 1991 to March 31, 1994. The results are as follows. Despite the low reimbursement rate by the health insurance, the number of laparoscopic cases have been steadily increased. The post-operative days before health insurance coverage were significantly shortened from 8.4 days to 4.6 days. The preoperative days before health insurance coverage were significantly shorted from 8.4 days to 4.0 days. The total length-of-stays in the hospital were also significantly shortened from 15.2 days to 10.7 and 9.8 days in laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The laparoscopic cholecystectomy showed low expenses in all aspects expect the average hospital charges per day. For the hospital to have cost containment, it is more effective if length-of-stay is shorter because of high daily inpatient hospital charge. The laparoscopic cholecystectomy also showed shortened anesthesia time and operation time compared with open cholecystectomy that were statistically significant. The mean anesthesia and operation time for open cholecystectomy were 113.2 and 90.2 minutes but those of laparoscopic cholecystectomy were 105.7 and 68.6 minutes. According to this study the laparoscopic cholecystectomy has reduced the medical expenditure and we recommend this procedure over open cholecystectomy. The further discussion on the different morbidity rate between two types of procedure is essential in providing quality medical care, and to educate specialist.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.5-13
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• 2008

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify Activities of Daily Living(ADL) of industrial accident disabled with a caregiver and to evaluate the degree of satisfaction with services according to kinds of caregiver, professional or non-professional. Method: Data was collected from 178 patients in three workers' accident medical corporations of H, A and D cities from July to August, 2006. Five inspectors interviewed with the disabled by visiting the hospital. Collected data was analyzed for the frequency, percentages, t-test, etc. Results: The average score of ADL which ranged from 1 to 7 was 3.6. The 51.5 percent of caregivers for industrial accident disabled were non-professional and the 48.5 percent of caregivers were professional. 50.9 percent of the reason for the family caregivers was because of economical one. The caregiver satisfaction degree was 3.7 out of 4. The satisfaction degree with the professional caregivers was significantly higher than that with non-professional family caregivers for their excellent knowledge and techniques. Conclusion: A nursing expenses for the industrial accident disabled was intended to provide appropriate nursing services for the patient and so, it should not be a kind of income. So, the system for caring services should be investigated and the qualification of caregivers should be classified according to the health condition of the patient or ADL.