• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.275-307
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• 2010

In the presidential new-year address in January 2, 2009, the President declared that 17 kinds of new driving force of growth that could create high-added value be selected to step up job creation and an increase in national wealth. The Ministry of Strategy & Finance announced plans for the 17 kinds of new driving force of growth after the presidential address. Specifically, that ministry announced an ambitious plan to select health care service named 'Global Health Care' as one of the five service industries that could create high-added value in a move to provide jobs to approximately 7,000 people and produce pervasive economic effects coming up to a trillion and 10 billion won. To attain the goal, several action plans were mapped out to globalize domestic medical institutions, to rearrange the relevant law and system for the purposes of raising awareness of domestic medical institutions among foreign patients and improving their accessibility and post-satisfaction level, and to lure lots of foreign patients through financial assistance. At the same time, the government announced plans to lure severe patients such as those in want of surgery or organ transplant, cancer patients or patients with heart diseases to create high-added value on a long-term basis. Thus, the government announced that it planned to formulate such strategies and to enter an agreement with foreign governments to attract plenty of foreign patients. In fact, however, there are little full-scale evaluation of medical tourism though it's been a year since it was introduced, and there are few actual efforts to implement what the government announced, either. According to the results of the evaluation of medical tourism, domestic hospitals are said to undergo little significant changes after the introduction of medical tourism, which shows that they take a dim view of medical tourism instead of having expectations for that. The medical tourism industries in major Asian countries have been dynamized, and there are several factors of their success. First of all, they are successful in creating new market opportunities by incorporating related industries such as medicine, tourism and IT and in developing medical tourism products and differentiated marketing by taking advantage of their competitive edge. They have offered full-fledged assistance to this sector, and another reason is the improved international credibility of their medical service. If our country fails to pinpoint our problems in consideration of the cases of the Asian countries or to provide appropriate financial aid, our country is bound to lag behind them. Given this reality, how to assess medical tourism and what challenges this sector is confronted with are discussed.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.345-366
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• 2014

Because the health care or medical sector has such characteristics as publicity, professionality, and exclusivity, it cannot be left to the free market system. As a consequence, the state has restricted the establishment of medical institutions in order to protect the life and health of people. Also, the medical law has regulated to permit the establishment of medical institutions by only medical personnel and a few corporate bodies and to ban the establishment of medical institutions under disguised ownership as well as double opening of medical institutions by medical personnel. Nevertheless, there are still many cases that non-medical personnel have dominantly established medical institutions under disguised ownership of other medical personnel or nonprofit corporation. Because they are willing to recover their investment costs as soon as possible, these illegally established medical institutions are likely to make patients undergo unnecessary tests or to perform the excessive treatments and, as a result, are likely to cause infringement on the health and lives of the people. In addition, even if the misconduct is uncovered, the rate at which the costs already paid is very low and, as a result, the damages are straightly connected to the people's loss. On the other hand, there are also increasing number of cases that medical personnel or nonprofit corporations are establishing medical institutions against the medical law regulations. The examples of this illegality are also the double opening of medical institutions and the establishment of medical institutions under disguised ownership by medical personnel or nonprofit corporations. And the damages in these cases may not differ from those in the above cases. In this study, regarding medical law regulations restricting opening a medical institution, I will review the intent of those regulations, the type of violations and criminal punishments, and the possibility of recovery from unlawful profit by the National Health Insurance Act. And then, I would like to find a way for rational improvement of each.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.77-110
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• 1994

This study is an empiriacl analysis of effects of government intervention on the health care delivery system in Korea. The purposes of this study are to find out the effects of government intervention on the per capita national health expenditure(per capita NHE), crude mortality rate(CMR), and institutional efficiency. Here, the institutional efficiency is defined as a formula shown below: log$\frac{100-curde mortality rate }{per capita NHE}$$\times$100. The formula indicates that the instiutional efficiency increases if the CMR and/or per capita NHE goes down. In the meantime the government intervention is measured by six independent variables: I) the degree of social developments, ii) the numberr of physicians per 100, 000 population, iii) the proportion of specialists among the total physicians, iv) the proportion of public expenditure among the NHE, v) the proportion of public beds to the total number of beds, vi) the proportion of physicians working at the public sector to the total number of physicians. In the above six independent variables iv), v) and vi) are the ones that reflect the degree of government intervention. In actual calculation, the two independent variables v) and vi) are integrated into a new variable based on one to one correspondence. The materials used are the time-series data from 1970 through 1990 in Korea. A path analysis and the time-series regression analysis were adopted to estimate and examine the causal relationship between variables involved. And decomposition of the effect of causal relationship is made to find net effect, direct and indirect effect. The major findings are as follows; 1. The effect of public expenditure, number of physicians per 100, 000 population, the proportion of specialists among the total physicians and social development shows a positive relationship with per capita NHE. Only if the government intervention would be counted, the effects of the number of physicians and the proportion of specialists succeed in containing per capita NHE. 2. In additionn to the above four variables, one additional variable, per capita NHE, was also responsible for the reduction of CMR. The factor of social development found to be the most potent predictor of the CMR reduction. However, the CMR reduction due to government intervention was negligible. 3. Meanwhile, the above four variables were found to was have negative effects on the institutional efficiency. The reverse is true when the government intervention is counted. For example, the number of physicians and the proportion of specialists have played a positive role in raising institutional efficiency via goverment intervention. This comes from the factual effect that the increment of institutional efficiency via the reduction of per capita NHE is bigger than via the reduction of CMR.

• 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.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.330-342
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• 2015

Medical tourism has been regarded as one of the most lucrative tourism sector for many destinations, particularly Asian countries. Medical tourism, combining the very polarized purposes of pleasurable travel and potentially stressful health care services, is an emergent and growing business worldwide. This study empirically examined the mediating effect on the relationship between service orientation and turnover intention of medical tourism employees, sampling nurses. The empirical results demonstrated: 1) service orientation had a direct negative influence on turnover intention; 2) the relationship between service orientation and turnover intention was mediated by job involvement; and 3) the relationship between service orientation and turnover intention was mediated by job satisfaction. These results can contribute to the medical tourism field by managers a valid and reliable indications for developing successful strategies in the medical tourism sector.

• The Journal of Bigdata
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.195-205
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• 2019

Linked Open Data (LOD) is rated as the best of any kind of data disclosure, and allows you to search related data by linking them in a standard format across the Internet. There is an increasing number of cases in which relevant data are constructed in the LOD form in the global environment, but in the domestic healthcare sector, the disclosure of data in the form of LOD is still at the beginning stage. In this paper, we introduce a case of LOD platform construction that provides services by linking domestic and international related data by LOD method, based on the data of Korean medical research paper data and health care big data linkage platform. Linking all data from each DB into an LOD requires a lot of time and effort, and is basically an infrastructure task that government or public institutions should be in charge of rather than the private sector. In this study, ten domestic and foreign LOD sites were linked with only a portion of each DB, enabling users to link data from various domestic and foreign organizations in a convenient manner.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.91-101
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• 2012

The purposes of this study were to identify the living environment in rural fishing area and to suggest checking methods for implementation performance. Rural service standard is the key factor of rural development in Korea. In 2012. The first Implementations of performance was announced. The results were presented to the unit by the City and the County. Because of Fishing villages exists as a unit by the haengjeongri. It is difficult to know the status of the fishing villages by the Rural service standard. In order to look for the actual conditions in rural fishing village it was investigated in the 100 Eochongye. The data used in the analysis is 577 questionnaires. Analysis showed that rural fishing areas were superior to general state of rural in the 8 items of rural service standard. Especially housing, transportation and health care sector in rural fishing area wes better than general state of rural. But Public safety and order is relatively poor. This is because Fishing village contains islands. Presenting to improve rural service standard based on the results of research. The items of rural service standard should be measured the actual residents' accessibility than opportunity of the public service, and after setting the rural service standard clearly related to the quality of life of residents in each sector. Accessibility aspects of the customer for the public services should be considered. Checking the performance for the unit by the City and the County should be replaced as a living zone in order to consider the facilities using nearby.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.17 no.2 s.32
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• pp.34-47
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• 1996

We have seen a sharp increase in the utilization rate of medical services since the launch of Nation Health Insurance system in 1989. However, the market share of oriental medicine in the Korean health sector has been gradually diminished mainly due to low insurance coverage and high price. Especially high price as an entry barrier to oriental medical services has played a major role in decreasing market share. This paper investigated the effects of price discount on the financial condition and market share of oriental medical institutions. Microeconomic theory and multiple regression analysis were used as a methodology in testing the alternative hypothesis: price discount of enveloped herb drug will result in increases in both the revenue and market share of oriental medical institutions. Data was collected from the statistical yearbook and sample survey. The price elasticity of demand for enveloped herb drug was estimated at 5.8 during 1987-1995 period, which means that a 1% decrease in price will bring about a 5.8% increase in the utilization of oriental medical services. The empirical result shows that a drastic price discount for the enveloped herb drug will eventually improve the financial status of the oriental medical institutions and enlarge the market share of oriental medicine in the Korean health care sector.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.70-94
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• 1999

This paper was performed for a cost-effectiveness analysis of pharmacologic treatment of hypercholesterolemia. Agents modeled were cholestyramine, gemfibrozil. bezafibrate, lovastatin, pravastatin, simvastatin. Pharmacologic effectiveness was estimated by regression from reported clinical trials. Pharmacologic effects were expressed as the percent change of blood cholesterol level. Cost estimates included patients' travel expenses and time loss as well as resource consumption in the health care sector. Bezafibrate was the most efficient agent for reducing total cholesterol levels, having an cost over 1 year of ￦31.400 per percent reduction in total cholesterol. Simvastatin (10mg/d) was also efficient(￦33,100 per percent reduction). Chole styramine(8g/d) was least efficient at ￦90,200. For low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. simvastatin(10mg/d) was most efficient, at ￦23,200 per percent reduction, followed by lovastatin(20mg/d) at ￦28,000. Gemfibrozil was least efficient at ￦77,800 per percent reduction. For high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. bezafibrate(400mg/d) was most efficient at ￦39,300 per percent increase of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Cholestyramine was least efficient at ￦514,700. Analyses combining low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and high-density cholesterol effects suggest that bezafibrate(600mg/d) and simvastatin (10mg/d) were most efficient for reducing cardiovascular risk. The cost-effectiveness analysis results show that both simvastatin and bezafibrate could be efficient treatment. Simvastatin provide more effective treatment at higher cost, whereas bezafibrate is more cost-effective, as it may be less effective, at lower cost. Therefore, clinicians should choose reasonable treatment according to the patient's needs This pharmacoeconimc analysis will provide a guideline for efficient pharmacologic treatment and also be reference data for pricing new drugs.

• Interdisciplinary Bio Central
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.6.1-6.4
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• 2009

We stand at the brink of a fundamental change in how medicine will be practiced. Over the next 5-20 years medicine will move from being largely reactive to being predictive, personalized, preventive and participatory (P4). Technology and new scientific strategies have always been the drivers of revolutions and this is certainly the case for P4 medicine, where a systems approach to disease, new and emerging technologies and powerful computational tools will open new windows for the investigation of disease. Systems approaches are driving the emergence of fascinating new technologies that will permit billions of measurements on each individual patient. The challenge for health information technology will be how to reduce this enormous amount of data to simple hypotheses about health and disease. We predict that emerging technologies, together with the systems approaches to diagnosis, therapy and prevention will lead to a down turn in the escalating costs of healthcare. In time we will be able to export P4 medicine to the developing world and it will become the foundation of global medicine. The "democratization" of healthcare will come from P4 medicine. Its first real emergence will require the unprecedented integration of biology, medicine, technology and computation. as well as societal issues of major importance: ethical, regulatory, public policy, economic, and others. In order to effectively move the P4 scientific agenda forward new strategic partnerships are now being created with the large-scale integration of complementary skills, technologies, computational tools, patient records and samples and analysis of societal issues. It is evident that the business plans of every sector of the healthcare industry will need to be entirely transformed over the next 10 years.and the extent to which this will be done by existing companies as opposed to newly created companies is a fascinating question.