• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.180-189
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• 2023

Objectives: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to a global shortage of medical resources; therefore, we investigated whether COVID-19 impacted the quality of non-COVID-19 hospital care in Korea by comparing hospital standardized mortality rates (HSMRs) before and during the pandemic. Methods: This retrospective cohort study analyzed Korean National Health Insurance discharge claim data obtained from January to June in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. Patients' in-hospital deaths were classified according to the most responsible diagnosis categories. The HSMR is calculated as the ratio of expected deaths to actual deaths. The time trend in the overall HSMR was analyzed by region and hospital type. Results: The final analysis included 2 252 824 patients. In 2020, the HSMR increased nationwide (HSMR, 99.3; 95% confidence interval [CI], 97.7 to 101.0) in comparison to 2019 (HSMR, 97.3; 95% CI, 95.8 to 98.8). In the COVID-19 pandemic zone, the HSMR increased significantly in 2020 (HSMR, 112.7; 95% CI, 107.0 to 118.7) compared to 2019 (HSMR, 101.7; 95% CI, 96.9 to 106.6). The HSMR in all general hospitals increased significantly in 2020 (HSMR, 106.4; 95% CI, 104.3 to 108.5) compared to 2019 (HSMR, 100.3; 95% CI, 98.4 to 102.2). Hospitals participating in the COVID-19 response had a lower HSMR (HSMR, 95.6; 95% CI, 93.9 to 97.4) than hospitals not participating in the COVID-19 response (HSMR, 124.3; 95% CI, 119.3 to 129.4). Conclusions: This study suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic may have negatively impacted the quality of care in hospitals, especially general hospitals with relatively few beds. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary to prevent excessive workloads in hospitals and to properly employ and coordinate the workforce.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.71-84
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• 2009

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to analyze the proportion of admission via the emergency room(the rest is ER) in an emergency medical center and to examine the factors related to admission. Methods : This study used 2005 National Health Insurance claims data for admitted patients of 112 hospitals having emergency medical centers in Korea. The study sample had 2,335,610 patients. The data was classified into emergency admission and non-emergency admission. To investigate the factors affecting the type of admission, the following were included as independent variables: type of health assurance_(national health insurance beneficiaries or medical aid beneficiaries), demographic characteristics_ (sex, age), cause of admission_ (disease or injury), whether an operation was performed or not, DRG severity level, the number of beds, and the location of the hospital. Data were analyzed using the Chi-square test for the differences in emergency admission rates for each variables, and multiple logistic regression analysis was used for identifying the factors affecting admission type. Results : The proportion of admission via the ER accounted for 40.6% of the total admission among hospitals having emergency medical centers. The risk of admission via ER was relatively high for patients who were male, the aged, the injured, the surgical patients, the patients having more severe symptoms, and the patients admitted the hospitals located in metropolitan areas, and the patients admitted the hospitals having 300-699 beds. Medical aid patients were more likely admitted through the emergency room than health insurance patients after other variables ware adjusted. Conclusions and Discussion : We analyzed the proportion of admission via the ER for the total admission rate of hospitals having an emergency medical center in Korea. And we explored the factors related to admission via the ER. This proportion may be used as an indicator of the adequacy of medical utilization or low accessibility to hospitals of patients with low socioeconomic status.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.31-58
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• 1995

The Korean government achieved the universal coverage of health insurance in July 1989, and concomitantly introduced a new measure of regulated health care delivery system in using medical care. There are three reasons why the government took the new health care delivery system. Firstly, there was ample room for improving the allocative efficiency in the use of medical facilities. And the second one was to constrain the dramatic increase of medical demand under health insurance. Thirdly, and the most important reason was to alleviate the patient crowdedness in big general hospitals, particularly tertiary hospitals. There are essentially two different ways to control the use of health care : one is to cut the demand for health care, and the other to regulate behaviors of providers through the use of incentives/disincentives, demand-side approach or supply-side approach. The objective of this study is to examine whether or not medical care utilization behaviors under health insurance scheme have been changed among medical facilities such as clinic, hospital, general hospital and tertiary hospital in comparison with those before and after the introduction, particularly whether the patient crowdedness in tertiary hospitals has been alleviated or not. In order to conduct this study, the insurance claim data during the period of January 1989 and July 1992 were analyzed by focusing on diagnosis of both inpatients and outpatients, and especially the fifteen most frequent diseases in ambulatory care and the seven most frequent diseases in hospitalizatio. In addition, the same analyses were made on the changes in medical care utilization by specialty department. This was because the five departments, such as family medicine, ENT, eye, dermatology and rehabilitation, were exempted from applying the regulated health care delivery system in tertiary hospitals. The study revealed that a remarkable alleviation effect in the crowdness was noted for tertiary hospitals. This effect was most conspicuous for the most frequent mild diseases of both inpatient and outpatient care. For example, the fifteen most frequent OPD care at tertiary facilities have decreased as much as by 40%, of which 34% belonged to the cut in initial visits. Meanwhile, the proportion of those who used general hospitals and private practitioner's clinics have increased due to the shift of patients. The cases from the five special departments were also decreased, but not so much as other departments. A problem was noted that, as time passed by, the decreasing tendencies of crowdness at tertiary hospitals due to the regulated system became slightly smaller. Therefore, through complementary remedies are needed for the future implementation.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.18-29
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• 2000

Back injury is frequent in industry workers and is a common cause of productivity loss. It has been reported that the insured of industrial accident insurance tend to stay in hospital longer than that of other types of insurance. The purpose of this study was to identify factors affecting the length of hospital stay for the treatment of back injury in the workers under industrial accident insurance. The results of this study help insurers develop reasonable industrial accident insurance policy for back injury claims and prevention strategies of work-related back injury. A total of 2,949 patients whose industrial accident insurance claim has been approved for the treatment of work-related back injury from January to December 1999 were included in this study. Relationship between the length of hospital stay and characteristics of patient, work place, back injury, and hospital were assessed using ANOVA, t-test, simple linear regression and multiple resgression. The major findings of this study are as follows : 1. The average length of hospital stay(LOS) was 91.82 days, respectively. 2. Characteristics of Patient LOS of male patients was longer than that of female patients, there was positive correlation between age and LOS and between average wage and LOS. Working period was negatively correlated with LOS. Distance from resident to hospital was positively correlated with LOS and LOS was significantly different dependign on type of duty. 3. Characteristics of Work Place LOS was significantly different depending on types of industry and geographical region of work place. Size of work place was positively correlated with LOS. 4. Characteristics of Back Injury Occupational back pain required shorter LOS compared with back injury due to electric shock. Number of concomitant illnesses and severity of disability were positively correlated with LOS. 5. Characteristics of Hospital Patients treated in community hospitals required significantly longer LOS. Treatment in hospitals with rehabilitation program required decreased LOS. This was more prominent as number of physicians specialized in rehabilitation. 6. Multiple regression analysis revealed that distance form resident to hospital, geographical region of work place, size of work place, number of concomitant illnesses, severity of disability, and type of hospital were factors affecting LOS.

• 한국노년학
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.259-276
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• 2011

If frail elderly could use home care services adequately, quality of their life might improve and their costs of service would be decreased. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors on institutionalization of elderly using home care services in Korean long-term care insurance system. This study used the data of '2009 satisfaction survey of Korean long-term care system'. The survey proceeded using sampling data by region, level of long-term care need, and insurance type among beneficiaries from August 2009 to September 2010. The onset dates of institutionalization of 1,230 participants were ascertained from long-term care insurance claim data. This study calculated hazard ratio through Cox Proportional Hazard Model. The results showed that if elderly using home care services suffer a fracture, the hazard ratio of institutionalization is higher significantly. Although not significant, if older persons have more items of damaged cognitive functions, the hazard ratio of institutionalization is higher. The results have policy implications to supplement of home care service system and postpone institutionalization of elderly.

• 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.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.98-115
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• 2003

Concerns about growing health insurance expenditures became a national Issue in 2001 when the National Health Insurance went into a deficit. Increases in spending for ambulatory care shared the largest portion of the problem. Methods and systems to control the spending should be developed and a system to measure case mix of providers is one of core components of the control system. The objectives of this article is to examine the feasibility of applying Korean Diagnosis Related Groups (KDRGs) to classify health insurance claims for ambulatory care and to identify problem areas of the classification. A database of 11,586,270 claims for ambulatory care delivered during January 2002 was obtained for the study, and the final number of claims analyzed was 8,319,494 after KDRG numbers were assigned to the data and records with an error KDRG were excluded from the study. The unit of analysis was a claim and resource use was measured by the sum of charges incurred during a month at a department of a hospital of at a clinic. Within group variance was assessed by th coefficient of variation (CV), and the classification accuracy was evaluated by the variance reduction achieved by the KDRG classification. The analyses were performed on both all and non-outlier data, and on a subset of the database to examine the validity of study results. Data were assigned to 787 KDRGs among 1,244 KDRGs defined in the classification system. For non-outlier data, 77.4％ of KDRGs had a CV of charges from tertiary care hospitals less than 100％ and 95.43％ of KDRGs for data from clinics. The variance reduction achieved by the KDRG classification was 40.80％ for non-outlier claims from tertiary care hospitals, 51.98％ for general hospitals, 40.89% for hospitals, and 54.99% for clinics. Similar results were obtained from the analyses performed on a subset of the study database. The study results indicated that KDRGs developed for a classification of inpatient care could be used for ambulatory care, although there were areas where the classification should be refined. Its power to predict tile resource utilization showed a potential for its application to measure case mix of providers for monitoring and managing delivery of ambulatory care. The issue concerning the quality of diagnostic information contained in insurance claims remains to be improved, and significance of future studies for other classification systems based on visits or episodes is guaranteed.

• The Journal of Churna Manual Medicine for Spine and Nerves
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.53-64
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• 2016

Objectives : The aim of this study is to assess the usage of diagnosis codes for somatic dysfunctions and the general characteristics of patients diagnosed with the code, by analyzing health insurance data provided by the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service(HIRA) of Korea. This investigation is intended to outline future and willing to contribute to further use of diagnosis code and the approach of Oriental Medicine to somatic dysfunction. Materials and Methods : By analyzing HIRA data, those diagnosed with M99 codes, a code attributed to somatic dysfunction, were selected for analysis. Patients included were assessed for the relevant general characteristics, and the specific diagnostic criteria. The current usage rates and noteworthy characteristics of diagnostic codes of somatic dysfunctions were assessed. A comparative analysis between clinical departments and subcategories, and a comparative analysis to data of 2014 was conducted. Results : Patients given M99 codes constituted a small minority of all patients diagnosed in 2011 as shown by HIRA data. The codes were more frequently to older patients, females, outpatients, and those who filed for Health Insurance compensation. Medical institutions participating in the diagnosis were mostly primary care facilities, usually specializing in orthopedic(Western medicine sector) and internal medicine (Oriental Medicine sector). The most registered code in 2011 and 2014 was M995. The same trend can be observed in Oriental/Western medicine institutions and Public health center, on the other hand, between them, have some different patterns both 2nd and 3rd. Conclusions : This investigation is that of current usage of diagnostic codes of somatic dysfunction. HIRA insurance claim data was analyzed. Based on the current results, more precise diagnostic standards of somatic dysfunction are warranted. This study will provide a foundation for future Oriental Medicine approach to somatic dysfunctions.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.51-60
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• 2008

Objectives : We examined the effect of sociodemographic factors, cancer, and psychiatric disorders on suicide by gender and age-specific patterns in South Korea. Methods : The study is a case-control study. Claim data was obtained from the national health insurance database and national death registration database. The number of people who committed suicide was 11,523, which was matched with a control group consisting of ten times as many people at 115,230 selected from the national health insurance and medical aids beneficiaries. The medical utilization of the case group was one year before death and that of the control group was from July 1,2003 to June 30, 2004. Four variables-address, economic status, presence of a psychiatric disease, and cancer-were used in multiple logistic regression analyses. Results : Living in cities or in rural areas showed a greater risk for suicide than living in a metropolitan city. Low economic status, the presence of a psychiatric disorder, and cancer were also statistically meaningful risk factors for suicide. The three major psychiatric diseases, schizophrenia, alcohol abuse, and bipolar disorder, were meaningful in all age groups, but the scale of the odds ratio differed by the age group. Only the psychiatric disorder variable was meaningful in the adolescent group, whereas a psychiatric disorder and economic status were meaningful for the young adult group, and all variables were meaningful for the middle-aged group. A psychiatric disorder and cancer were meaningful in the elderly group, economic status was meaningful for male subjects, and address was meaningful for female subjects. Conclusions : Factors such as living in city or rural areas, low economic status, the presence of a psychiatric disorder, and cancer were statistically meaningful risk factors in suicide. These factors also differed by age group. Therefore, policymakers should establish policies for suicide prevention that are relevant for each age group.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.81-91
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to test a validity and reliability of Cognitive Performance Scale(CPS), a cognitive measure generated from 5 items(comatose status, decision making, short-term memory, making self understood, and eating). Method: 393 patients in 2 hospitals for the elderly with dementia were measured with CPS by two nurses independently. The inter-rater agreement was tested by comparing two scores. The CPS score was compared with GDS, which was measured by doctors and nurses, and MMSE score which was drawn from the claim data of Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service. Result: The correlation coefficient between CPS and GDS was 0.742(p<0.0001), CPS and MMSE was -0.794(p<0.0001). The Cronbach's coefficient alpha of CPS was 0.742, Kappa value was 0.772~1.000. The CPS showed high validity and reliability in long term care hospitals of Korea.