• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.184-194
• /
• 2019

Background: The extent of coverage rate of the public health insurance is still insufficient to meet healthcare needs. Private health insurance (PHI) plays a role to supplement coverage level of national health insurance in Korea. It is expected that reduce unmet need healthcare. This study was aimed to identify relationship between PHI type and the unmet healthcare need and its associated factors. Methods: Data were obtained from the 2014 Korea Health Panel Survey using nationally representative sample was analyzed. Respondents were 8,667 who were adults over 20 years covered by PHI but have not changed their contract. According to the enrollment form, PHI was classified into three types: fixed-benefit, indemnity, and mixed-type. To identify factors associated with unmet needs, multiple logistic regression conducted using the Andersen model factors, which are predisposing factors, enabling factors, and need factors. Results: Our analysis found that subjects who had PHI with mixed-type were less likely to experience unmet health care needs compared than those who did not have it (odds ratio, 0.80; 95% confidence interval, 0.66-0.98). As a result of analyzing what affected their unmet healthcare needs, the significant factors associated with unmet medical need were gender, marital status, residence in a metropolitan area, low household income, economic activity participation, self-employed insured, physically disabled, low subjective health status, and health-risk factors such as current smoking and drinking. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that having PHI may reduce experience of unmet healthcare needs. Findings unmet healthcare needs factors according to various subjects may be useful in consideration of setting policies for improving accessibility to healthcare in Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.329-338
• /
• 2018

The study seeks to widen the discussion from healthcare oriented 'health publicness' to human security oriented 'health publicness'. The shortcomings of previous literatures on health publicness are as follows: (1) the studies have confined the range of discussions to healthcare system, (2) lacked arguments from political perspectives, and (3) failed to provide actionable pathways to achieve the goal. Thereby, we suggest 'health publicness' based on the concept of human security to solve multidimensional healthcare problems. The health publicness based on human security, which aims to secure everybody's freedom from want and fear, enables not only to expand the scope of health problems that can be discussed but also to propose the procedures to achieve health publicness. More specifically, it consists of substantive and procedural health publicness. The former is about 'health security'-protecting, maintaining, and promoting individual's health-whereas, the latter is about 'social dialogue' guaranteeing participation of citizens, government, employers, and worker representatives. In conclusion, this study proposes the 'Regional Healthcare Quadripartite' as the incarnation of health publicness involving a variety of actors within and across the healthcare system.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.261-271
• /
• 2021

Background: In 2018, the government increased the fee for the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) image deciphering services of the external hospital to discourage the redundant MRI scan and to induce appropriate use of the MRI services. It is important to evaluate the effect of the policy to provide the basis for establishing other MRI-related policies. Methods: The healthcare data of the patients who had brain MRI scans were organized by episode and analyzed using the panel study in order to find out the effect of the MRI-related policy on the substitution effect and the medical expenses. Results: As a result of the increase in the fee of deciphering the MRI image, there has been an uplift in deciphering the MRI scan of the external hospital. It implies that more hospitals chose to use the MRI scan taken by other clinics or hospitals, rather than the MRI scan taken at their own facilities. Conclusion: The research results imply that a policy that facilitates the exchange of the medical image data between the hospitals is needed in order to establish an efficient management system of the healthcare resources. Such improvement is expected to reduce the social cost and contribute to the stability in the finance of national health insurance.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
• /
• 2013.11a
• /
• pp.815-817
• /
• 2013

U-Healthcare 서비스는 차세대 의료 패러다임으로 많은 이용자에게 편의성을 보장하기 때문에 사회에서 그 중요성이 인식되고 상용화 시도가 이루어지고 있다. 이러한 U-Healthcae 서비스 시장이 안전하게 형성되기 위해서는 정부의 보안정책이 확실하게 정립되어야 한다. 본 고에서는 안전한 U-Healthcare 서비스의 보안위협을 보안의 3대 요소인 기밀성, 무결성, 가용성을 기준으로 분류하고 살펴본 후 이에 대한 보안정책 방향을 제시하고자 한다.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.167-187
• /
• 2012

Organizational growth is achieved through the process of finding opportunities in the environment and establishing a business model with internal and external resources. Bestian Hospital, which primarily focuses on saving the lives of patients with severe burns, has enlarged its business domain through deep understanding of burn patients' problems, including pain and complications during treatments, long-term treatments, skin reconstruction, and so on. Now Bestian is accelerating research for development of antipyretics and cosmetics for burn patients. The success of Bestian has been due to utilization of human and material resources that are essential to performance in the medical field. Also, Bestian properly used a management service organization(MSO) model and constructed an information technology(IT) system for supporting its businesses. However, previous successes do not guarantee continued success. Bestian is entering a new domain with different challenges than it has experienced so far, and how it deals with these challenges will decide its future.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.87-101
• /
• 2017

[Purpose] This study aims to classify of healthcare decline and analyze the corresponding health outcomes among cities in Korea. In pursuing the above, this paper gives the particular attention to draw policy implications. [Methodology/Approach] Public healthcare data of 81 cities between 2014 and 2015 was obtained from the National Medical Center of Korea. A matrix analysis, t-test, ANOVA and multivariate regression were applied. [Findings] The study results indicated that declining cities tend to have the most healthcare resources, compared to growing or maintaining cities. However, accessibility to healthcare appeared to be lower in declining cities. Based on the classification of cities on healthcare decline, 42 out of 81 cities were categorized as a maintain/improvement group, while 39 cities were characterized as decline/depression. The group with a decline/depression type has significantly more healthcare facilities than maintain/improvement type. In contrast, maintain/improvement cities indicated lower incidence of morbidity and mortality than decline/depression cities. Lastly, according to the multivariate regression analysis for the healthcare outcomes by the type of healthcare decline, incidence of morbidity and mortality tended to decrease as the number of healthcare workers, the proportion of people who have healthcare accessibility, and the Timely Relevance Index increased regardless of the number of medical facilities including hospital beds and special beds. [Practical Implications] In conclusion, focusing on the improvement of healthcare accessibility as well as staffing, rather than expanding facilities is essential to set the healthcare policies.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.382-393
• /
• 2019

The right to petition is a classical right of the people in constitutional states, and in Korea, it is a statutory right in the Constitution, the National Assembly Law, the Petition Law, and the Local Autonomy Act. The healthcare community first made a successful petition to the National Assembly when it achieved the amendment of the Government Organization Act through a petition to the National Assembly for the independence of the Ministry of Health, and this achievement served as the basis for further petitions. Since then, the healthcare community has successfully achieved the enactment and amendment of related occupational laws through National Assembly petitions, such as the amendment of Article 41, Paragraph 7 of the former Medical Insurance Act (Korean Medical Association, 14th Assembly), enactment of the Dental Health Act (Korean Dental Association, 15th Assembly), and amendment of the Health Functional Foods Act (Korea Pharmaceutical Association, 16th Assembly). Its petition accomplishment rate is higher than the total petition accomplishment rate of the Health and Welfare Committee of the National Assembly. However, along with the overall decrease in the number of National Assembly petitions, the Korean Medical Association and Korea Pharmaceutical Association have not achieved any results through petitioning since the 16th Assembly (June 2000), and the Korean Hospital Association and Korean Nurses Association have not achieved any results through petitioning since the 17th Assembly (April 2004). Furthermore, no National Assembly petitions have been made at all for 5 years (2014-2018). The Korean Medical Association and Korea Pharmaceutical Association previously showed a high petition accomplishment rate through their accumulated experience with National Assembly petitions and vigorous policy assistance from doctors/pharmacists/nurses turned lawmakers. More specifically, healthcare organizations have achieved results by actively conducting organized activities with the National Assembly, as implemented by a national assembly director and employees, and in case of petitions for legislation, each group has established infrastructure for reviewing the relevant laws by appointing a legislative director, as well as a legal advisor and advisory counsel. Although the organization that has submitted the most petitions to the National Assembly is the Korean Hospital Association, the group with the highest petition success rate is the Korean Medical Association, which may be linked to the relatively high proportion of doctors who have become lawmakers. Furthermore, the fact that other healthcare organizations were highly interested in petitioning the National Assembly has had major implications for the petition activities of healthcare organizations.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
• /
• v.47 no.1
• /
• pp.291-315
• /
• 2016

This paper analyzed experientially political conducts of the political players on privitization of healthcare service and public healthcare sercive aftrer the democratization in order to determine the influence of democracy on the development of a welfare state. For this purpose, the contents of the major daily newspaper reports from 1993 to 2012 were analyzed. As a result of such analysis, it was found that the political parties did not drive the policy even after the democratization reflecting the demands of the people, political parties had a strong conservative stance and did not show a consistent ideological inclination in their policies. Second, even though the role of the civic movement in the public healthcare service issue became larger after the democratization, policy decisions were driven by the government in an authoritative manner. In addition, the degree of contribution by the civic movements to the development of public healthcare service did not offset the influence of the president and the finance ministry on the development of privatization. Third, both the development of public healthcare service and privatization progressed simultaneously under the Kim Dae Jung, Rho Mu Hyun and Lee Myung Bak administrations after the democratization and it is thus difficult to argue that the qualitative nature as a welfare state was changed after the democratization. However, the degree of development as a welfare state differed depending on the ideological inclination of the presidents, the capacity of the welfare ministry and the ministry that drove the privatization.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.112-127
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study is to develop performance indicators for quality of public health center based home healthcare through the study the major factors of registrated weaken poorly residents in the community based home healthcare. Various literature review was conducted to study the performance indicators for quality of public health center based home healthcare of advanced countries and Korea. Mail survey was conducted from national wide PHC(public health centers), sub health centers and primary health care posts. of the surveys mailed, 2,293 centers(67%) were returned within the allotted and we included in the analysis these who completed the questionnaire. Data was analysed by SPSS for windows 12.0. The major results of the research were as follows; Firstly, major factors of registrated weaken poorly residents in the community based home healthcare in the multivariate analysis were jurisdictional families per manpower(OR:0.78, 95%CI:0.64-0.94, P=0.011), weaken poorly families per manpower(OR:0.42, 95%CI:0.35-0.50, P<0.001), business vehicles per manpower(OR:1.13, 95%CI:1.04-1.24, P=0.007) type of public health center(OR:4.42, 95%CI:3.32-5.90, P<0.001), region of public health center(OR:0.53, 95%CI:0.32-0.89, P=0.017). Secondly, performance indicators for quality of public health center based home healthcare were developed as basic investigation, registration, intervention and discharge level. Preparing for Activation of public health center based home healthcare in Korea, the result application as follows is possible. Firstly, we can conclude that the major factors of registrated weaken poorly residents in the community based home healthcare are jurisdictional families per manpower, weaken poorly families per manpower, type of public health center, region of public health center, business vehicles per manpower. Secondly, the new developed performance indicators which are divided into basic investigation, registration, intervention, discharge for public health center based home healthcare could be applied it for improving quality of home healthcare services.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.21-31
• /
• 2020

Purposes: Family living with dementia patients have the burden for caring and suffer from health problems. Therefore, proper supports for their health disorders are required. The purpose of this study with regard to this is to subdivide unmet healthcare needs of family living with dementia patients into affordability, accommodation, and accessibility and figure out the relevant factors. Methodology: The 2017 Community Health Survey was used, and 2,331 families living with dementia patients was included. To figure out the factors with regard to the types of unmet healthcare needs, multinominal logistic regression analysis was conducted. Findings: According to the analysis result, sex, age, monthly household income, economic activity, self-rated health, self-rated stress and perception of depressive symptoms turned out to be the factors related to unmet healthcare needs. Regarding affordability, unmet healthcare needs were low when the object was female, over 65, highly educated, and monthly household income were high. On the other hand, unmet healthcare needs was high when self-rated health was bad, self-rated stress was high, and had depression. With regard to accommodation, unmet healthcare needs were low when the object was over 65. Unmet healthcare needs were high when the object was female, economically active and had depression, and self-rated health was high. Regarding accessibility, unmet healthcare needs were low when the object was high school graduate, but it was high when self-rated health was bad. Practical Implication: This study confirmed that the family with dementia patients had a high proportion of unmet healthcare needs due to affordability and accommodation. The existing main discussion was that the experience of unmet healthcare needs normally occurred due to economic reasons, but a consideration on various cases and factors is required to ultimately achieve the policy goal to reduce the unmet healthcare needs of the family living with dementia.