• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.447-450
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• 2012

Video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) has been recommended as more optimal surgical technique than traditional thoracotomy for lobectomy in lung cancer, but it is not well defined. Here, we compared VATS and traditional thoracotomy based on clinical data. From November 2008 to November 2010, 180 patients underwent lobectomy for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCL) identified by computerized tomography. Of them, 83 cases were performed with VATS and 97 by thoracotomy. Clinical parameters, consisting of blood loss, operating time, number of lymph node dissection, days of pleural cavity drainage, and length of stay were recorded and evaluated with t test. No significant difference was observed between the VATS and thoracotomy groups in the average intraoperative blood loss, number of lymph node dissections, and days of pleural cavity drainage. While the average operating time in the VATS group was significantly longer than that in thoracotomy group, recurrence was only present in one case, as opposed to 7 cases in the thoracotomy group In conclusion, similar therapeutic effects were demonstrated in VATS and thoracotomy for NSCL. However, VATS lobectomy was associated with fewer complications, recurrence and shorter length of stay.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-24
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• 1993

This study is designed to find clues to make a plan for efficient hospital bed utilization. Author has tried to estimate the level of appropriateness and to find out factors affecting intra-hospital variation of inappropriate bed utilization using modified Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol of which criteria are based on service intensity and patients' conditions. Systematic random sampling was done from the population of inpatients during one month in on university hospital. Data were collected by concurrent and retrospective medical record review and analysed by multiple logistic regression. In medical services, 83.5% of admission reveals appropriate and the level of inappropriate admission shows significant differences by patients' residence, type of department admitted to, admission 개\ulcorner, and length of stay. In surgical services, 97.3% and 34.7% are appropriate in location and timing of surgery respectively. Inappropriate timing of surgery differs significantly depending on patients' age, type of department admitted to, admission route, and length of stay. Sixty two percent of hospital days shows appropriate and the level of inappropriateness show marked differences by patients'age, type of services, admission routes, part of the month, part of the stay, and length of stay. Inappropriate hospital days are due to inappropriate level of care, premature admission, improper scheduling of diagnostic or therapeutic procedures, and problems in scheduling surgery in sequence. In conclusion, substantially high proportion of inappropriate hospital bed utilization was confirmed. To reduce it, it is necessary to develop alternative services with which can replace inpatient services, and to introduce utilization management system which may include internal peer review.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.18-32
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• 2009

The goal of this study was to predict the health outcomes of lung cancer surgery based on the Charlson comorbidity index (CCI). An attempt was likewise made to assess the prognostic value of such data for predicting mortality, survival rate, and length of hospital stay. A medical-record review of 389 patients with non-small-cell lung cancer was performed. To evaluate the agreement, the kappa coefficient was tested. Logistic-regression analysis was also conducted within two years after the surgery to determine the association of CCI with death. Survival and multiple-regression analyses were used to evaluate the relationship between CCI and the hospital care outcomes within two-year survival after lung cancer surgery and the length of hospital stay. The results of the study showed that CCI is a valid prognostic indicator of two-year mortality and length of hospital stay, and that it shows the health outcomes, such as death, survival rate, and length of hospital stay, after the surgery, thus enabling the development and application of the methodology using a systematic and objective scale for the results.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.96-102
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• 2024

Background: The aim of this study was to compare the early outcomes of octogenarians undergoing minimally invasive right anterior mini-thoracotomy aortic valve replacement (RAT-AVR) with those undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) for aortic valve disease. Methods: In this single-center retrospective study, data were collected from octogenarians before and after RAT-AVR and TAVI between January 2021 and July 2022. Short-term outcomes, including the length of hospital stay, in-hospital mortality, all-cause mortality, and other major postoperative complications, were compared and analyzed. Results: There were no significant differences in in-hospital mortality, stroke, acute kidney dysfunction requiring renal replacement therapy, length of intensive care unit stay, or length of hospital stay. However, the TAVI group had a higher incidence of permanent pacemaker insertion (10% vs. 0%, p=0.54) and paravalvular leaks (75% vs. 0%, p<0.001). Conclusion: In the present study on octogenarians, both TAVI and RAT-AVR showed comparable short-term results. Although both procedures were considered safe and effective in the selected group, RAT-AVR had a lower incidence of complete atrioventricular block and paravalvular regurgitation.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.240-247
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• 2014

Objective: Undernutrition is common amongst esophageal cancer patients and therefore appropriate nutrition support is critical. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of enteral nutrition (EN) versus parenteral nutrition (PN) is still controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of EN and PN on the nutritional state and the length of hospital stay for patients who underwent an Ivor-Lewis (IL) esophagectomy. Method: A retrospective clinical analysis was performed that utilized the electronic medical records of patients who underwent IL esophagectomy during a 3-year period between January 2010 and December 2012 at a tertiary teaching hospital located in Seoul, Korea. The EN group and PN group were analyzed by comparing the nutrition supply, postoperative complications, length of hospital stay, and weight variation. Results: After an IL esophagectomy, the complication rate between the EN group and PN group was insignificant and the length of hospital stay was significantly shorter for the PN group compared to the EN group (14 vs. 16 days, respectively; p<0.001). At the time of discharge, those in the PN group lost less weight postoperatively (p=0.003). Conclusion: PN may be considered as safe nutrition support for esophageal cancer patients who underwent an esophagectomy.

• Journal of Korean Foot and Ankle Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.124-128
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• 2014

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the treatment outcomes and prognosis of Lisfranc joint fracture and dislocation according to the mechanism of injury and treatment method. Materials and Methods: Twenty six patients with Lisfranc fracture-dislocation who had been treated surgically were included in this retrospective study. The patients were divided into two groups according to mechanism of injury: direct crushing injury (16 patients) and indirect rotational or compressive injury (10 patients). The patients were also divided into three groups according to the surgical methods. The parameters used were radiographic evaluation, patients' subjective satisfaction levels, length of hospital stay, and the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) midfoot score. Statistical analysis was performed. Results: The mean postoperative AOFAS midfoot score was 78.7. The mean length of stay was 39.6 days. Statistically significant differences in subjective satisfaction, AOFAS midfoot score, and length of hospital stay were observed between the two groups (p<0.05). However, no significance differences were observed between the three groups who were divided according to the different surgical methods (p>0.05). Conclusion: Mechanism of trauma and the severity of soft-tissue injury were significant prognostic factors affecting the surgical outcomes of Lisfranc joint fracture and dislocation.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.541-564
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• 2011

This study aimed to investigate health outcome of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients such as mortality and length of stay in hospital and to identify factors associated with the health outcome according to the comorbidity index. Nation-wide representative samples of 3,748 adult inpatients aged between 20-85 years with acute myocardial infarction were derived from the Korea National Hospital Discharge Injury Survey, 2005-2008. Comorbidity index was measured using the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI). The data were analyzed using t-test, ANOVA, multiple regression, logistic regression analysis in order to investigate the effect of comorbidity on health outcome. According to the study results, the factors associated with length of hospital stay of acute myocardial infarction patients were gender, insurance type, residential area scale, admission route, PCI perform, CABG perform, and CCI. The factors associated with mortality of acute myocardial infarction patients were age, admission route, PCI perform, and CCI. CCI with a higher length of hospital stay and mortality also increased significantly. This study demonstrated comorbidity risk adjustment for health outcome and presented important data for health care policy. In the future study, more detailed and adequate comorbidity measurement tool should be developed, so patients' severity can be adjusted accurately.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.22-27
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• 2017

The length of hospital stay (LOS) for patients with respiratory virus infections has been reported to depend the virus type and infection severity. However, the impact of co-infections remains unclear. Patients with suspected respiratory virus infections, who visited Dankook University Hospital between December 2006 and February 2014, were included to examine the relationship between co-infections and LOS. Multiplex reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reactions were used to identify the causative viruses. LOS was analyzed with respect to sex, age, virus, and co-infection. During this period, 5,310 out of the 8,860 patients (59.9%; median age, 1.5 years) were respiratory virus-positive. In respiratory virus-positive patients with single, double, and three-or-more infections, the average LOS was 7.3, 6.7, and 6.6 days, respectively. Longer LOS was observed for older patients and those with human coronavirus OC43 infections compared with adenovirus or respiratory syncytial virus A infections. LOS differed significantly according to age, virus type, and co-infection, but not between double and three or more infections.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.107-114
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• 2016

Background: Over the last few decades, because hospitals in South Korea also have undergone dramatic changes, Korean hospitals traditionally have provided specialized health care services in the health care market. Inner Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (IHI) measures hospital caseloads based on patient proportions, independent of patient volumes. However, IHI that rely solely on patient proportions might be problematic for larger hospitals that provide a high number of diagnosis categories, as the patient proportions in each category are naturally relatively smaller in such hospitals. Therefore, recently developed novel measure, category medical specialization (CMS) is based on patient volumes as well as patient proportions. Methods: We examine the distribution of hospital specialization score by hospital size and investigate association between each hospital specialization and length of stay per case and hospital cost per case using Korean National Health Insurance Service-cohort sample data from 2002 to 2013. Results: Our results show that IHI show a decreasing trend according to the number of beds and hospital type but CMS show an increasing trend according to the number of beds and hospital type. Further, inpatients admitted at hospitals with higher IHI and CMS had a shorter length of stay per case (IHI: B=-0.104, p<0.0001; CMS: B=-0.044, p=0.001) and inpatients admitted at hospitals with higher IHI and CMS had a shorter hospital cost per case (IHI: B=-0.110, p=0.002; CMS: B=-0.118, p=<0.0001). Conclusion: This study may help hospital policymakers and hospital administrators to understand the effects of hospital specialization strategy on hospital performance under recent changes in the Korean health care environment.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.42-53
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• 1997

To offer basic data about the influential factors on patient's Satisfaction level for emergency medical services the authors were performed this study in 60 patients visited to emergency room of third stage general hospital in Taejeon city. Data were collected through interview with patients by using a 15 items' questionaire according to care subscale, teaching subscale of Likert's five stage quantitative scale and the tools developed by Barbara Davis. The data were analyzed by using the SPSS/PC computerized program for mean, standard deviation, percentage, ANOVA, t-test, and pearson correlation. The results are as followings ; 1. Satisfaction of emergency medical service were showed in care area, but not showed in teaching and total area 2. Satisfaction of sociodemographic characteristics were a statistically significant difference only marriage, that were the higher in marriaged than single(P<.0.05). 3. In the emergency situation characteristics the satisfaction accordings to the visit cause were lower in accident than disease group, the reason of hospital selection were in order trust, introduction group, distance, traffic, kinds, and score of satisfaction were showed each of 43.47, 51.27(P<.001), the transportation vehicle was the 119, hospital ambulance group. but were not a satistically significant difference. 4. The negative correlation was observed between satisfaction and the length of stay at ER and the longer length of stay at ER was showed the lower satisfaction. But the positive correlation was observed between satisfacton and the arrival time, patients who arrived ER from 6:00P.M. to midnight were more satisfied than patients who arrived other time. 5. The length of stay at ER was significantly different according to the reason of hospital selection, the reason of ER selection, the visitant cause and hopital decisioner. Especially the length of stay was much longer in accident group and unconscious group.