• Health Policy and Management
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.65-84
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• 2012

Because of the rising healthcare costs, there is a growing need for developing efficiency indicators for medical resources use and measuring efficiency of healthcare providers and healthcare systems using them. In this study, we aimed to develop efficiency indicators for medical resources use by means of Delphi technique. We systematically reviewed the existing measures of medical resource use. Thirty nine indicators were selected as a candidates across the six domains: medical personnel, medical equipment, medical facilities, ethical management, resource efficiency, and drug use. To develop efficiency indicators with professional consensus, a 2-round Delphi survey was conducted among 29 professional experts. The following indicators were selected based on the Delphi survey results: adjusted number of the patient per day and level of the nurse number medical personnel in medical personnel domain; the number of the scan a professional physician and the quality of the scan in medical equipment domain; bed utilization rate in medical facility domain; drug price reported pharmaceutical price by medical institutions, medical fee billing transparency, and medical care appropriateness in ethical management domain; costliness index in resource efficiency domain; and utilization of high cost drug and items per prescription in drug use domain. The efficiency indicators could provide valid information about efficiency of healthcare providers and healthcare systems with respect to their resources use and facilitate policies to improve their efficiency.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.23-32
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• 2010

U-healthcare provides people with many conveniences and keeps their health. As facility centered medical environment is being changed to patient centered one, however, various problems are emerging. These problems range from institutional problems to technological, producer related, and user related ones. The researcher took interested in problems originating from users, in particular, elderly patients and guardians taking care of an elderly patient. The main focus of this study is the direction of serious contents design for training skills in HMI of U-healthcare equipment and developing emergency coping abilities. In this study, I started from research on elderly cognitive psychology and elders' motor reactions and interconnected the characteristics of various digital content forms. The results of this study are expected to be useful for the rapidly expanding elderly population and in the U-healthcare industry.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.143-158
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• 2017

Objectives : This study aims to analyze differences in the use of postpartum care services and identify the factors affecting their use. Methods : Data were collected from the 2008-2014 Korean Health Panel. Chi-square tests were conducted to analyze differences in the characteristics of women after birth by the use of postpartum care services. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors affecting the use of each type of postpartum care service. Results : Participants with higher education and household income levels were more likely to use a postpartum care facility. Individuals with a lower number of household members, who gave birth in 2011-2013, and who used hospitals specializing in obstetrics and gynecology had a greater likelihood of using a postpartum care facility. The probability of using a postpartum caretaker was higher when participants did not perform any economic activities. Conclusions : It is meaningful to confirm that use patterns and determinants of postpartum care facilities and postpartum caretakers are completely different and that the socioeconomic status of women affects the utilization of postpartum care facilities.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.73-82
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• 2017

Purpose: Since the facility guidelines for National Designated Isolation Unit wards(NDIUs) had been edited since 2016, all hospital who want to expand or install NDIU should adapt the new guidelines. Instead of providing area requirement, by the way, only essential or optional facility requirements are suggested except patient bedroom in the guidelines. So, as analyze area and area composition of the NDIUs, it could be expected that this study has a role as an area planing reference for not only NDIU but also another airborne infection isolation room. Methods: For the area analysis, 18 sample hospitals are selected among 2016 year applicants. All rooms in NDIUs are grouped as zones whether those are negative air pressurized or not and programed room or not. At the end, area of the zones are summarized and analysed a relationship between area increase and bed number by both correlation analysis and regression analysis. In addition, department usable and gross area per bed, N/G ratio, G/N ratio, and average area ratio of each zone is calculated. Results: First of all, rooms in none negative air pressurized zone of the NDIUs haven't shown a regular installation so that only those in negative air pressurized zone are targeted for the area analysis. Second of all, patient room unit(0.92) and support area(0.79), by correlation analysis, are correlated with total net area. Patient room unit(0.94) and total net area(0.79) are also shown a correlation with bed number. Department usable area($R^2=0.63$, y=36.278x + 102) and patient room unit area($R^2=0.89$, y= 27.993x - 0.8924) has a relationship with bed number by regression analysis. Average N/G is shown as 0.85 and G/N 1.36. Average area ratio of circulation, doffing area, patient room unit, and support area are 25.4%, 9.1%, 50.9%, and 14.6% in order. Implications: This study is a basic research for exploring the NDIUs guidelines to find resonable evidence to develop it for its practical use. Still, it is possibly expected that the guideline is to be developed by post occupancy evaluation in the area of where minimum requirement or facility grade needs to be defined, and by further studies with various perspectives.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.267-280
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• 2017

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe the status of infection control nurses (ICNs) and their activities, and to identify the factors affecting the level of infection control activities. Methods: Data were collected from 199 hospitals from June 24 to July 26, 2016. The structured questionnaires included status of infection control nurses, type and level of infection control activities. Results: Most participating hospital were advanced general hospital (20.1%) and general hospital (67.8%). Among the hospitals, 86.4% had an infection control department (ICD). The average hospital work experience of ICNs was 14.62 years, and their average infection control career was for 4.94 years. Among the ICNs, 85.6% worked in full time and the average number of beds per ICN was 311.21. There were significant differences in the existence of ICD, infection control activities including surveillance, outbreak investigation, negative pressure room, hand hygiene monitoring, disinfection, and sterilization according to hospital size. The level of infection control activities was higher with more number of ICNs, ICN employment as full time, and healthcare institution accreditation status. The explanatory power was 37.5%. Conclusion: These results of this study which reflect infection control status of healthcare facilities with more than 150 beds in 2016 will provide baseline data to establish infection control system in small to medium sized hospitals after the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in 2015.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.891-898
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• 2009

This paper suggests producer/consumer-based Data Binder enabling applications and biomedical devices developed by mutually different vendors to transfer data dynamically. Data Binder is implemented as a bundle of OSGi platform providing component-based programming model and service-oriented operation architecture. Data Binder complements the disadvantage of OSGi WireAdmin service enabling static data delivery between a producer and a consumer of data. Data Binder normalizes an application requirement as an application descriptor and a device capability as a device descriptor so that it enables dynamic data delivery by making data producer/consumer pair in runtime. Therefore, Data Binder can be used as a connection management of a data link between a data producer and a data consumer in sensor-based application development. The object of this paper is to provide the facility of the healthcare service development by separating a data producer such as a biomedical device from a data consumer such as a healthcare application.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.299-305
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• 2021

This study examined to identify the factors influencing on inpatients' satisfaction with hospitalization and willingness to recommend hospital to others. Data from the 2018 National Patient Experience Survey were used for the analysis. Of the 593 patients experiencing inpatient services, multivariate linear regression analysis was conducted to explore the factors such as physician care, nursing care, facility and administrative support, and healthcare system on inpatients' satisfaction after controlling for their socio-demographic and health related factors. The study found that physician care, nursing care, administrative support and healthcare system were related to inpatients' satisfaction and willingness to recommend hospital. To improve inpatients' satisfaction, it is necessary to improve healthcare professionals' overall patient-centerdness attitude, user friendly hospital facilities and administrative support services and efforts to trust and satisfaction on healthcare system from the patients' perspectives.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.49-59
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• 2022

Objectives: Access to maternal and neonatal care services (MNCS) is an important goal of health policy in developing countries. In this study, we proposed a 3-level hierarchical location-allocation model to maximize the coverage of MNCS providers in Iran. Methods: First, the necessary criteria for designing an MNCS network were explored. Birth data, including gestational age and birth weight, were collected from the data bank of the Iranian Maternal and Neonatal Network national registry based on 3 service levels (I, II, and III). Vehicular travel times between the points of demand and MNCS providers were considered. Alternative MNCS were mapped in some cities to reduce access difficulties. Results: It was found that 130, 121, and 86 MNCS providers were needed to respond to level I, II, and III demands, respectively, in 373 cities. Service level III was not available in 39 cities within the determined travel time, which led to an increased average travel time of 173 minutes to the nearest MNCS provider. Conclusions: This study revealed inequalities in the distribution of MNCS providers. Management of the distribution of MNCS providers can be used to enhance spatial access to health services and reduce the risk of neonatal mortality and morbidity. This method may provide a sustainable healthcare solution at the policy and decision-making level for regional, or even universal, healthcare networks.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.49-55
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• 2014

Purpose: AIn recent years, the rapid progress of aging and the increase in the elderly people with dementia is becoming a big social issue. Therefore, this paper studies the development of therapeutic environmental rating scales for the elderly people with dementia in korean nursing homes. Methods: We identify the development process and structure of TESS-NH and understand the details of its nature and features. Then, based on the detailed items, we provide major scale factors which do influence on therapeutic environmental rating scales using PCA. Results: In the results, TESS, in the case of the initial stage of TESS-NH, has an advantage to evaluate on physical environments for a short period of time. TESS-2 + sets a large rage of activities of the elderly people with dementia, and tries to evaluate ongoing cares. TESS-NH has a complete set of well-thought-out assessment features for improving quality of care (Quality of Care) On the other hand, the main factors affecting the therapeutic environmental rating scales in nursing homes are "a consideration for facility management (Care for facilities' maintenance)", "a consideration for spatial cognition (Care for spatial cognition) ", and "a consideration for the safety (Care for safety)". Implications: In the future, to develop the therapeutic environmental rating scales on Korea's dementia nursing home, we should actively consider cares of spaces and facility utilization which the residents (the elderly people with dementia) are more secure and comfortable.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.47-60
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• 2019

Purpose: Regional public hospitals have implemented functional reinforcement projects, and the facilities to accommodate them have increased in size. Nevertheless users in hospital are concerned about space shortage and area imbalances. Therefore I will trace the factors and trends that influence the size, and derive the relationship between these and the uses' critical opinion. Methods: Among the indicators for determining the size of medical facilities, the number of beds and total floor area are the essential indicators that directly affect the composition of space and allocation of area inside the medical facility. The purpose of this study is to investigate the change and the factors of change on the these two indicators in regional public hospitals and analyze the trend of changes. Results: In accordance with support undertaking, regional public hospitals have been increased the number of chronic-based beds and expanded additional facilities such as O.P.D specialized centers, emergency centers and funeral homes for reflecting the needs of the regions and times. However, as a result of analyzing the area, regional public hospitals are growing in size mainly on the ward and O.P.D is only expanded the scope of functional reinforcement division but total area level of O.P.D is lower than the recent level. In addition, the levels of D&T, Supply, mechanical/electrical equipment area related to medical support and control environment quality are very low. This is because the functional reinforcement projects have been done without concerning diagnose the whole facility. Implications: If functional reinforcement projects are conducted, to cope with problems of space shortage and imbalance of area, it is judged that an architectural planning that comprehensively analyzes existing facilities and related departments should be included.