• Health Policy and Management
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.73-99
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• 1997

This study was carried out by using questionnaires with 126 insurance societies from Sept. 30, 1995 to Oct. 18, 1995. The primary data collected bythe survey have been significantly supplemented by secondary data obtained from sources such as health insurance statistical year books and internal data in the Ministry of Health and Wolfare. Major findings were summarized as follows: Two financial coordinating programs have significantly improved financial status of regional health insurance societies: the catastrophic program for high cost medical care that was initiated in 1991 and the program for hospitalization cost of the aged in 1995. Another finding is that there existed ambiguity and inconsistency of equity index that had been used by stabilization programs and its side effects could not be ignored. Regression analyses were made to identify factors that affect financial transfers. Inde pendent variables in the regression include utilization frequency, dependancy ration, insurance contribution per insured and medical expense per insured. All these variables were statistically significant in the equations of applying distribution rate (distribution/contribution) and transfer rate (transfer/contribution) as dependent variables. Policy suggestions for the catastrophic program for high cost medical care are modifying the definition of catastrophic case and setting the maximum amount of subsidies for each society based on distribution rates. To solve the problems of the financial coordinating program for the aged, we could consider reimbursing more than 50% of the copayment incurred by the aged 65 or more and determining the maximum amount of outpatient copayment at 10,000 Won per day or per visit for the elderly. More fundamental improvement could be made by amending the Welfare Benefit Act to establish and expand medical and welfare facilities for the elderly.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.27 no.4 s.48
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• pp.807-814
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• 1994

This study is to find out changes in medical practice at a university hospital before and after covering intraocular lens (IOL) from the health insurance benefit. The coverage started on March 1, 1993 and a total of 596 cases who were discharged from July 1 to December 31, 1992 and 580 cases who were discharged from July 1 to December 31, 1993 were analyzed. Since the standard reimbursement scheme was changed from March 1, 1993, the charges for 1992 were transformed into 1993 scheme. Major findings are as follows: Average length of stay was statistically significantly decreased from 8.24 days in 1992 to 6.86 days in 1993. Charges except IOL has been statistically significantly decreased from 501,000 Won in 1992 to 444,000 Won in 1993. Charges for drugs and injection have been reduced. However, charge per day for them was not much different. This is due to decrease in length of stay. Charges for laboratory tests and radiologic examination were quite the same. Charges which are not covered by the insurance remained the same. The revenue of the hospital was reduced as expected. However, the hospital reduced the length of stay and increase the turnover rate In order to compensate the potential loss of revenue due to the difference of reimbursement between the out-of-pocket expense and the insurance coverage. By introducing the IOL benefit in the insurance, the insured pays less, hospital generates more revenue through shortening the hospital stay, and the total medical care cost becomes less nationwidely.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.58-75
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• 1998

Background : In Korea, the rational use of antibiotics are rarely controlled, and their patterns of utilization are not understood. In order to reduce the excessive use and to improve the appropriate use of antibiotics, it is necessary to accurately determine present uses of antibiotics in hospitals. Methods : Analysis of the use of prescription drugs was performed on NFMI(National Federation of Medical Insurance) 1994 medical expense claim data. A stratified sampling by types of hospitals, departments, and diseases was obtained from 1994 August data. Patients with secondary diseases were excluded. In this study, 2,697 adults with URI, 6,397 children with URI, 704 adults with bronchitis, and 1,838 children with bronchitis were included. Results : Most patients were prescribed medication (95.2-99.6%). Of the patients prescribed medication, more than 85% of URI patients and more than 91% of bronchitis patients were prescribed antibiotics. Antibiotics expenses accounted for 14% of total medical expenses in adults and 9% of total medical expenses in children. In adults with URI, antibiotics expenses accounted for 52% of drug expenses. Of the patients prescribed antibiotics, average number of antibiotics used was 1.6-1.7. For patients who are prescribed antibiotics, drug expenses were 62-97% greater than patients not prescribed antibiotics. When children were prescribed antibiotics, the highest price of drugs prescribed were 3.4-fold greater. In addition, the number of drugs prescribed also increased by more than one. Elderly patients, more than 60 years, were prescribed antibiotics less frequently. Children less than 10 years and elderly patients greater than 60 years old were prescribed fewer antibiotics than other patients. And they were prescribed medications for longer days than other patients. Conclusion : This study demonstrated that the average rate of prescribing antibiotics was higher in Korea than other countries. Measures to reduce overuse of antibiotics and to improve the appropriate prescription of antibiotics must be considered for cost effective treatment and overall health of people.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.48-56
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• 2019

Purpose: As an interest in the elderly medical expenses increases, elderly people are increasingly purchasing indemnity private health insurance. Authors tried to investigate factors of having the indemnity private health insurance among the elderly people aged 65-75 years. Methods: We conducted panel logit regression analysis on 2,465 subjects as of 2016 using Korean Health Panel from 2010 to 2016. The dependent variable was whether to enroll in the indemnity private health insurance. The explanatory variables included socio-demographic characteristics, economic factors, health status, and health behaviors. Findings: As a result of the analysis of factors of purchasing indemnity private health insurances, it was analyzed that people with larger family, educated, pensioner, high household income or no disability were more likely to have indemnity private health insurance. Practical Implications: Considering the results of this study, the factor of purchasing indemnity private health insurance among elderly people were more likely to be their economic than demographic characteristics such as sex, age, and marital status. Policy makers should make efforts to reduce the burden on the elderly medical expense and to improve equity of medical use through institutional improvement such as raising age limit and lowering premium of indemnity private health insurance and expansion of public health insurance.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.317-325
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• 2005

The recent medical treatment guidelines and the development of information technology make hospitals reduce the expense in surrounding environment and it requires improving the quality of medical treatment of the hospital. That is, with the new guidelines and technology, hospital business escapes simple fee calculation and insurance claim center. Moreover, MIS(Medical Information System), PACS(Picture Archiving and Communications System), OCS(Order Communicating System), EMR(Electronic Medical Record), DSS(Decision Support System) are also developing. Medical Information System is evolved toward integration of medical IT and situation si changing with increasing high speed in the ICT convergence. These changes and development of ubiquitous environment require fundamental change of medical information system. Mobile medical information system refers to construct wireless system of hospital which has constructed in existing environment. Through RFID development in existing system, anyone can log on easily to Internet whenever and wherever. RFID is one of the technologies for Automatic Identification and Data Capture(AIDC). It is the core technology to implement Automatic processing system. This paper provides a comprehensive basic review of RFID model in Korea and suggests the evolution direction for further advanced RFID application services. In addition, designed and implemented DB server's agent program and Client program of Mobile application that recognized RFID tag and patient data in the ubiquitous environments. This system implemented medical information system that performed patient data based EMR, HIS, PACS DB environments, and so reduced delay time of requisition, medical treatment, lab.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.343-352
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to examine the health related quality of life of the elderly of more than 65 years old in a small and medium-sized city in rural area in order to prepare the measure to promote the quality of life of the elderly in rural areas. The data were collected from Sep. 21 to Oct 30, 2015 and analyzed using spss/win 23.0. The factors influencing on health related quality of life of the sample are as follows: 1. social participation; 2. gender; 3. subjective state of health; 4. family support; 5. level of one's own medical expense. The sample's ability of explanation of those factors were 26.3%. Therefore, it is necessary to develop inclusive and persistent programs of health promotion that consider social participation, gender, subjective state of health, family support, and level of one's own medical expense for the elderly of more than 65 years old in a small and medium-sized city in rural area.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.109-120
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• 2001

This study has been done in order to help the people understand the cancer patients and provide the basic materials for the care of cancer patients by deeply understanding the living experience of the practice of alternative therapy for cancer patients. Data were collected with several in depth interviews and observations. Collected datas were analyzed by using phenomenological method of study by Giorgi (1970). The trial experience of alternative therapy for cancer patients has been classified into the one of having concerns, following, being infatuated, and coming out by pushing, and the experience of having concerns appeared as the meaning of the limit of modern medicine, despair, loneliness. hope, emotional support. dissolution of the feeling of uneasiness. the feeling of burden of the medical expense, self-treating, the subject of treatment. and indifference while the experience of following appeared as the meaning of blind following, temptation, going outside to look for something, wandering. following unconditionally, advise of the professionals, mistaken belief. self-abandonment, powerlessness. disconnection of dialogue with the medical staff. elevation of immunity, strengthening the physical power, absence of the source of examined information, clinging, self-responsibility. the experience of being infatuated appeared as the meaning of thorough trial. affirmative experience. devotion. diverse efforts, faithful trial. affirmative self-suggestion. change of the style of life. the feeling of burden of expense, being envious, bitter feeling toward the family, considering family, family discords, and difficulty of enforcement. The experience of coming out by pushing appeared as the meaning of waiting. self-reflection. maintaining the distance. cutting attachment, throwing the greed away, coming out by pushing. being thoughtful. accepting disease. individual difference of physical quality, and ambivalence. But they return to the experience of being concerned all over again in case of recurrence or metastasis of the disease even though they come out of such stage, and they always have ambivalence even in the condition with no recurrence and metastasis. In conclusion, the trial of alternative therapy for cancer patients could be explained as the adaptive behavior to the disease which is difficult to be cured. the cancer. The cancer patients are exposed to the side effects and harm without the examined information resources. Therefore the nurse should well aware of the alternative therapy and be able to do the appropriative management through the open communication with the patients who are under the trial of alternative therapy.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.36 no.12B
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• pp.1556-1564
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• 2011

The increased life expectancy of human due to the advance of medical techniques has led to many social problems such as rapidly aging populations, increased medical expenses and a lack of medical specialists. Thus, studies on improving the quality of life with the least amount of expense have been going on by incorporating advanced technologies, especially for Personal Health Devices (PHDs), into the medical service market. However, compatibility and extensibility among manufacturers of PHDs have not been taken into account in most of the researches done on the development of PHDs because most of them have been supported by individual medical organizations. The interoperability among medical organizations can not be guaranteed because each medical organization uses different format of the messages. Therefore, in this paper, an expansion module that can enable commercially-available non-standard PHDs to support the IEEE 11073, and a smart-phone-based manager that can support easy and comprehensive management on receiving and transmitting the collected data from each PHD using IEEE 11073 standard were developed. In addition, a u-health system that can transmit the data collected in the manager using the standard data format HL 7 to medical center for real-time medical service from every medical institutions that support this standard was designed and developed.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2021

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review to investigate the socio-economic benefits of the poison control center (PCC) and to assess whether telephone counseling at the poison control center affects the frequency of emergency room visits, hospitalization, and length of stay of patients with acute poisoning. Methods: The authors conducted a medical literature search of the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases. Two reviewers evaluated the abstracts for eligibility, extracted the data, and assessed the study quality using a standardized tool. Key results such as the cost-benefit ratio, hospital stay days, unnecessary emergency room visits or hospitalizations, and reduced hospital charges were extracted from the studies. When meta-analysis was possible, it was performed using RevMan software (RevMan version 5.4). Results: Among 299 non-duplicated studies, 19 were relevant to the study questions. The cost-benefit ratios of PCC showed a wide range from 0.76 to 36 (average 6.8) according to the level of the medical expense of each country and whether the study included intentional poisoning. PCC reduced unnecessary visits to healthcare facilities. PCC consultation shortened the length of hospital stay by 1.82 (95% CI, 1.07-2.57) days. Conclusion: The systematic review and meta-analysis support the hypothesis that the PCC operation is cost-beneficial. However, when implementing the PCC concept in Korea in the future, it is necessary to prepare an institutional framework to ensure a costeffective model.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.51-63
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• 2023

Objective : This study aimed to analyze the association between lifestyle and medical expenses of older adults with mental illness using claims data. Methods : We conducted secondary data analysis using the older adult cohort database provided by the Korea National Health Insurance Service. The lifestyle and medical expense variables were extracted from the cohort database. We used a generalized linear model to examine the association between lifestyle and medical expenses. Results : In total, 32,853 records were extracted. The results showed that smokers had medical expenses (estimate = -218,255, p = .037). As the number of days of walking increased, medical expenses significantly decreased (estimate = -58,843, p < .0001). Furthermore, as the number of days of drinking decreased, medical expenses increased (estimate = 692,289, p < .0001). Conclusion : This study analyzed the estimates of medical expenses according to lifestyle among older adults with mental illness. Smoking and exercise were negatively associated with medical expenses. These results suggest the importance of a healthy lifestyle for older adults with mental illness. In addition, this study can be used as clinical evidence for lifestyle management programs to improve physical and mental health.