• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.35-38
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• 2015

Background: Organizational changes that involve healthcare hospital departments and care services of health districts, and ongoing technological innovations and developments in society increasingly expose healthcare workers (HCWs) to work-related stress (WRS). Minimizing occupational exposure to stress requires effective risk stress assessment and management programs. Methods: The authors conducted an integrated analysis of stress sentinel indicators, an integrated analysis of objective stress factors of occupational context and content areas, and an integrated analysis between nurses and physicians of hospital departments and care services of health districts in accordance with a multidimensional validated tool developed in Italy by the National Network for the Prevention of Work-Related Psychosocial Disorders. The purpose of this retrospective observational study was to detect and analyze in different work settings the level of WRS resulting from organizational changes implemented by hospital healthcare departments and care services of health districts in a sample of their employees. Results: The findings of the study showed that hospital HCWs seemed to incur a medium level risk of WRS that was principally the result of work context factors. The implementation of improvement interventions focused on team development, safety training programs, and adopting an ethics code for HCWs, and it effectively and significantly reduced the level of WRS risk in the workplace. Conclusion: In this study HCW resulted to be exposed to occupational stress factors susceptible to reduction. Stress management programs aimed to improve work context factors associated with occupational stress are required to minimize the impact of WRS on workers.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.71-76
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• 2017

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the musculoskeletal diseases (MSDs) that occur in heavy industrial workers according to the occupational category, prevalence, environment, and number of physical therapy visits. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Methods: For this study, data was collected of workers who were engaged in heavy industry in Korea and who visited the company physicians and received physical therapy in 2016. Data was collected from 855 subjects and was analyzed. With the data collected, analysis of the type and prevalence of MSDs and the number of physical therapy visits that have occurred according to the occupational category and environment was performed. Results: The most common MSDs were lumbar sprains and spasms (31.1%), and shoulder sprain and spasm (19.4%). In addition, the most common type of MSDs according to the occupational category and environment (occupational type) were lumbar sprain and spasms in 11 occupations, including white collar workers, and in milling, inspection, crane operation, and finishing jobs, shoulder muscle sprain and strain were the most common disorders. Also, the prevalence of MSDs according to occupational category and environment (occupational type) was the highest in workers involved with welding, which was 29.7%. Conclusions: Through this study, the type and prevalence of MSDs according to the occupational category and environment of heavy industrial workers have been confirmed. Further studies are necessary to study the future types of the work patterns of industrial workers and to develop a system for preventing and managing MSDs that may occur.

• Korean Circulation Journal
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.69-91
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• 2023

Cardio-oncology is an emerging multi-disciplinary field, which aims to reduce morbidity and mortality of cancer patients by preventing and managing cancer treatment-related cardiovascular toxicities. With the exponential growth in cancer and cardiovascular diseases in Asia, there is an emerging need for cardio-oncology awareness among physicians and country-specific cardio-oncology initiatives. In this state-of-the-art review, we sought to describe the burden of cancer and cardiovascular disease in Asia, a region with rich cultural and socio-economic diversity. From describing the uniqueness and challenges (such as socio-economic disparity, ethnical and racial diversity, and limited training opportunities) in establishing cardio-oncology in Asia, and outlining ways to overcome any barriers, this article aims to help advance the field of cardio-oncology in Asia.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.18-40
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• 2001

This study purports to investigate the readiness of the university hospital employees in the knowledge-based management. Data were collected from 550 employees including administrative, nursing, and technical staff of 9 university hospitals located in Seoul and Kyunggi Province through the self-administered questionnaires. The response rate was 79% and 425 questionnaires were used as final data and analyzed using 2 test, t-test, and ANOVA. The main findings of the study are as follows. 1) It seems that most employees of the study hospitals have basic knowledge on the concept of knowledge-based management. This finding implies that the implementation of the knowledge-based management in Korean university hospitals will not likely to face strong resistance from their employees. 2) The results show that Korean hospital employees are still not so accustomed to using e-mail as the main communication tool. This finding suggests that it is necessary to use various communication tools which include electronic data interchange, teleconference, and cyber chatting for facilitating the knowledge-based management in Korean university hospitals. 3) It is desirable to appoint a chief knowledge officer(CKO) for operating knowledge-based management system effectively. 4) A reward system for employees who show a distinguished performance in the creation and sharing of new knowledge should be established. Knowledge mileage system, selection of the best knowledge employee and team will be a good example of the effective reward system. 5) The participation and support from the chief executive officers (CEO) of the hospitals is an important factor for successful knowledge-based management. Furthermore, to make physicians actively participate in the knowledge-based management is another important factor for obtaining valuable outputs from the system. 6) It is found that the knowledge and skills of the hospitals employees on the information technology (IT) are not sufficient for making knowledge-based management more popular. This implies that it is very important to select IT-oriented employees and educate them continuously on the knowledge-based management.

• 한국HCI학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.02a
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• pp.203-213
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• 2009

Medicine is one of great application fields where Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have been successfully utilized. The VR technologies in medicine bring together an interdisciplinary community of computer scientists and engineers, physicians and surgeon, medical educator and students, military medical specialists, and biomedical futurists. The primary feedback of a VR system has been visual feedback. The complex geometry for graphic objects and utilizing hardware acceleration can be incorporated with in order to produce realistic virtual environments. To enhance human-computer interaction (HCI), in term of immersive experiences perceived by users, haptic, speech, olfactory and other non-traditional interfaces should also be exploited. Among those, hapic feedback has been tightly coupled with visual feedback. The combination of the two sensory feedbacks can give users more immersive, realistic and perceptive VR environments. Haptic feedback has been studied over decades and many haptic based VR systems have been developed. This paper focuses on haptic feedback in term of its medical usages. It presents a survey of haptic feedback techniques with their applications in medicine.

• 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.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.110-135
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• 2005

The objectives of this study were (1) to describe doctors' perception and attitudes toward patient safety culture and medical error reporting in their working unit and hospitals, (2) to examine whether these perception and attitudes differ by doctors' characteristics, such as sex, position, and specialties, and (3) to understand the relationship between overall perception of patient safety in their working unit and each sub domain of patient safety culture. A survey was conducted with 135 doctors working in a university hospital in Korea. After descriptive analyses and chi-square tests of subgroup differences, a multivariate-regression of overall perception of patient safety in their unit with sub-domains of patient safety culture was conducted. Overall, a significant proportion of doctors expressed negative perception of their working units' patient safety culture, many reporting potentials for patient safety problems to occur in their unit. They also negatively viewed their hospital leadership's commitment on patient safety. Regarding the patient safety in their working unit, doctors were most worried about staffing level and observance of safety procedures. Most doctors did not know how and which medical error to report. They also perceived that medical errors would work against them personally and penalize them. About 22 percent of respondents believed that even seriously harmful medical errors were not reported.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.642-654
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• 1998

In order to examine the television(TV)'s role of nutrition education and the nutritional interests and problems of the general public in the 1990s, a comtents analysis was done on two nutrition-related TV programs, a regular round-table talk show and a newscast. Broadcast from January 1993 to July 1997 and from January 1997 to July f1997, respectively. Nutrition-related information was classified into five categories. Food and nutrient(39.5%) and diseases(34.7%) were most frequently telecasted, which were followed by food habits and general health(13.0%), traditional dishes and cookery(8.2%), and food sanitation and safety(4.6%). In becoming the latest year, some trends in the issues displayed increased telecasts about disease, dish and cookery, and food safety, while the telecasting of food and nutrient decreased. The contents about the relations hip between life-style(including diet) and chronic degenerative diseases and the importance of balanced diets and regualr meals for health promotion became particularly emphasized. Overall, two TV programs provided the public with positive, practical, and sometimes practive nutrition education messages for improving eating life and health care. They also raised the public's awareness of the nutritional importance of Korean staple foods such as rice, kimchi, seaweed, and soysauce, and they sometimes satified the audience's curiosities by introducing Korean food culture or foods of Buddhist priests. When the accident of food toxicity occurred concrete information about how to manage it was rapidly given to the public. In addition they played a role in food balance policy by telecasting over-product foods such as garlic and onion. However some negative points appeared. Telecasts on milk and its products and diabetes mellitus showed the least frequently. These shows should be broadcast more often considering the present nutrition and health problems in Korea. Some functions or effects of foods were mostly explained by only physicians of Chinese medicine. Sometimes misinformed, unclear, overemphasized, biased, or unfair information was televised to the public. If these problems could be solved through the sincere cooperation between nutrition faculty and TV produces, become televison could a more complete and effective medium for educating the public about nutrition.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.344-349
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• 2021

Background: Cancer patients have been disproportionally affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with high rates of severe outcomes and mortality. Fever is the most common symptom in COVID-19 patients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, physicians may have difficulty in determining the cause of fever (COVID-19, another infection, or cancer fever) in cancer patients. Furthermore, there are no specific guidelines for managing cancer patients with fever during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study evaluated the clinical characteristics and outcomes of cancer patients with fever during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This study retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 328 cancer patients with COVID-19 symptoms (fever) admitted to five hospitals in Daegu, Korea from January to October 2020. We obtained data on demographics, clinical manifestations, laboratory test results, chest computed tomography images, cancer history, cancer treatment, and outcomes of all enrolled patients from electronic medical records. Results: The most common COVID-19-like symptoms were fever (n=256, 78%). Among 256 patients with fever, only three (1.2%) were diagnosed with COVID-19. Most patients (253, 98.8%) with fever were not diagnosed with COVID-19. The most common solid malignancies were lung cancer (65, 19.8%) and hepatobiliary cancer (61, 18.6%). Twenty patients with fever experienced a delay in receiving cancer treatment. Eighteen patients discontinued active cancer treatment because of fever. Major events during the treatment delay period included death (2.7%), cancer progression (1.5%), and major organ dysfunction (2.7%). Conclusion: Considering that only 0.9% of patients tested for COVID-19 were positive, screening for COVID-19 in cancer patients with fever should be based on the physician's clinical decision, and patients might not be routinely tested.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.17-21
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• 2012

Objectives: Asbestos-related diseases (ARDs) have increased globally over the decades, causing an economic burden and increased health care costs. It is difficult to predict the risk of development of ARDs and of respiratory disability among workers with a history of asbestos exposure. Blood based biomarkers have been reported as promising tools for the early detection of malignant mesothelioma. This study investigated whether serum soluble mesothelin-related peptide (SMRP) would reflect severity of disablement in compensable ARDs. Methods: SMRP levels were measured in a cohort of 514 asbestos-exposed subjects. Severity of ARDs was assessed by a Medical Authority comprising four specially qualified respiratory physicians. Severity of ARDs and SMRP levels were compared. Results: Mean (standard deviation) serum SMRP level in the population with compensable ARDs (n = 150) was 0.95 (0.65) nmol/L, and was positively associated with disability assessment (p = 0.01). Mean SMRP level in healthy asbestos-exposed subjects was significantly lower than those with pleural plaques (p < 0.0001) and in subjects with ARDs who received compensation (p < 0.01). Conclusion: This study indicates that serum SMRP levels correlate with severity of compensable ARDs. Serum SMRP could potentially be applied to monitor progress of ARDs. Further prospective work is needed to confirm the relationship between SMRP and disability assessment in this population.