• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.186-194
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• 2017

Objectives: A significant concern has been raised about the emerging resistance that is largely caused by the excessive or inappropriate use of antibacterial agents for viral respiratory infections. This study investigated the trend of respiratory tract infections (RTIs) and the use of antibiotics. Methods: Utilizing the national level health insurance claims data from 2005 to 2008, we examined encounter days, antibiotic use, and the prescription rate for respiratory tract infections including upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs), lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs), and otitis media in outpatient settings. The antibiotic use was measured as defined daily dose per 1,000 patients per day (DDD/1,000 patients/day). Results: The visit for URTI increased from 141,693,465 in 2005 to 120,717,966 in 2008 and the visit for LRTI decreased from 61,778,718 to 66,930,122. For RTIs, prescription rates of antibiotics decreased from 65.2% to 58.5% for URTIs and 76.9% to 68.3% for LRTIs from 2005 to 2008. The antibiotic use decreased to 20.85 DDD/1,000 patients/day after a significant increase of 22.01 DDD/1,000 patients/day in 2006. Among antibiotics, J01CR had the highest use- 7.93 DDD/1,000 patients/day followed by J01DC of 3.71 DDD/1,000 patients/day and J01FA of 3.2 DDD/1,000 patients/day. One notable trend is that J01FA presented a continuous increase in antibiotic use from 2.3 in 2005 to 3.26 DDD/1,000 patients/day in 2008. Conclusion: The use of antibiotics had poor compliance to guidelines for RTIs. Despite decrease in the use of antibiotics, prescription rates for URTIs were still about 50% indicating that the delayed prescribing antibiotics (or wait-and-see) were not observed.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.69-81
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• 2010

Physical manifestations of aging due to the lack of exercise include the slowing down of motor learning, cardiopulmonary degradation, and the increasing difficulty to adapt to the environment. Aging is manifested with the lack of aerobic exercise work, decrease in muscular endurance, decline in skeletal and muscular strength, flexibility and agility, and the decrease in reaction speed and balance. Added to those are aging-related physiological changes, including the reduction of muscle bulk, increased body fat, decrease in total body water and basic metabolic rate as activities are reduced, and a decrease in cell and Lean Body Mass (LBM). These changes are known to cause problems. Interest and participation in appropriate physical activities among the elderly is needed to help them increase stamina, avoid diseases, maintain a clear intellect, and basically enable the elderly to live their daily lives as easy as possible. Therefore, physical activities are necessary for the elderly to enhance health-related factors. Special exercises should be performed for the enhancement of muscle function, muscle endurance, flexibility, agility, and balance. An accurate measurement of cardio-respiratory endurance and stamina through basic physical and cognitive characteristics of older adults is also required to ensure safety. Also, the development of a more scientific resistance exercise prescription system for the elderly is desperately needed.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.115-120
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• 2016

Background: Azithromycin has broad spectrum and is effective to treat several bacterial respiratory tract infection. It is also relatively safe and tolerable to pediatric patient. Careful use of azithromycin is also required for the prescribers because it could cause cardiovascular toxicity (QTc prolongation) and ototoxicity. There has been no study on duration of azithromycin use in pediatric patients in Korea. Methods: The outpatient sample data on the azithromycin prescription was obtained from Korean health insurance review and assessment service. The characteristics of azithromycin prescription were analyzed with two different years (2011 and 2014). Results: Total 4,215 cases were analyzed. The azithromycin was prescribed the most frequently in the children (73.2% in 2011 and 62.5% in 2014) and for the condition of bronchopneumonia (28.7% in 2011 and 21.7% in 2014) in both years. The duration of prescribed for azithromycin has significantly different between 2011 and 2014. In 2014, 94.3% of prescription were indicated less than 5 days, but 86.6% were in 2011. Acute bronchiolitis and bronchopneumonia prescriptions more longer duration of treatment compared with acute bronchitis and others. Conclusion: The pattern of prescribing azithromycin has been changed for the treatment of several infectious diseases in pediatric patients. The rate of appropriate duration of azithromycin treatment has increased.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.409-422
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• 2021

The growing use of prescription analgesic opioids has rapidly escalated the treatment of chronic pain since the 1990s; however, it is also highly needed to control opioid-related issues, including opioids misuse, abuse, and addiction. In 2018, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) secretariat administered the survey on opioids use and policies to OECD countries and presented it at the Health Committee meeting of December 2018. This study aimed to review the opioids use in OECD countries and their policies to prevent and reduce associated harms, also seek the available policy lessons from OECD countries. More recently, opioids prescribing rate have been increased 14.7% between 2011-2013 and 2014-2016 and steadily focused on the main substance misused and abused in Korea. In addition, policy efforts have contributed to developing a guideline for prescribing opioids to steer the appropriate use of prescription analgesic opioids since 2000 in Korea, so it is not enough to control opioids compared with other OECD countries. Therefore, taking a people-centered and public health perspective, it will consider the health system policies and interventions at a national level to improve their preparation and approach to control opioid-related issues.

• Herbal Formula Science
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.375-390
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• 2017

Objectives : In order to increase the utilization rate of insurance covered herbal medicines, it is necessary to improve the standard prescription lists of current national health insurance service. Methods : Previous research and discussions have been summarized, the cases of overseas insurance prescription were investigated, and compared with the insurance prescription of Korea. We conducted two questionnaire surveys. From the first email questionnaire survey, response rate was very low. So once again, from december 4, 2014 to december 17, we emailed a questionnaire survey to 17,275 members of the Korean medicine doctors and 890 peoples(5.1%) responded for two weeks. We analyzed prescriptions from previous studies, overseas cases, and surveys. Results : With overseas herbal medicine health insurance lists, prescriptions recommended by the experts committee, the prescriptions results of the first and second surveys, and the prescriptions presented in previous studies, we compared and analyzed all the results and we derived 202 prescriptions for NHIS. Conclusion: We suggest 127 Single extracts and 202 prescriptions to be added for NHI.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.28-33
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• 2004

This study was performed to examine in vitro biological activities such as antioxidative, nitrite scavenging effect, tyrosinase inhibitory effect and antithrombotic activity of a Korean traditional prescription, Nogyong-daebotang, composed of oriental medical herbs and antler, nourishing the blood, helthiness, strengthening of vital power and promotion of growth. The concentration of total phenolic compounds of the prescription sample was 151.3$\pm$2.6 mg％. The electron donating abilities (EDA) by reduction of 2.2'-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) was 80.9%, inhibition rate of lipid peroxidation in thiocyanate method used linoleic acid was 88.1%. Nitrite scavenging effects of the sample were more than 70% at acidic pH, but it was pH dependent, showing the highest at pH 1.2 and the lowest at pH 6.0. Inhibition rate against tyrosinase of the sample was above 80%. Platelet aggregation induced by ADP (adenosine-5'-diphosphate) was inhibited up to 30% and the inhibitory effect was dependent on concentration of the sample.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2005.08a
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• pp.124-125
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• 2005

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.64-80
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• 2003

The separation policy of prescription and drug dispensing which has been implemented since the 1st of July, 2000, has brought about great changes in patients flow within the healthcare delivery system. The changes in the patients flow, in turn, resulted in the change in the distribution of financial resources among the participating entities in the healthcare delivery system: pharmacies, clinics, small hospitals, general hospitals, and teaching hospitals. The purpose of this study is to shed some light in the change in the financial performance of teaching hospitals under the separation policy that has created environmental changes such as the decrease in the number of out patients visits, the increase in the capital expenditures, the rapid increase in labor costs and so on. For the purpose, this study has compared and analyzed the balance sheets, the income statements and other operational data of three teaching hospitals located in D area. The data include two periods: before(year 1999) and after(year 2001) the implementation of the separation policy. The analysis was conducted with an emphasis on the changes in the financial ratios such as liquidity, turnover ratio, performance ratio. and capitalization ratio. The results show that the financial performances of the hospitals under study were weaker than before the implementation of the separation policy, and that, while the operating expenses have increased remarkably, there was no tendency to corresponding increase in revenue. And the result of analysis of other operational indicators also show that the performance of the hospitals is getting worse. Based on the results, this study has suggested the directions of the healthcare policies. This study suggests to improve the current model of separation of prescription and drug dispensing, to grant subsidies for the training of residents in teaching hospitals, and to lower the rate of patients' out of porket payment in teaching hospitals.

• Journal of Korean Medicine for Obesity Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.28-41
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• 2023

Objectives: This study was aimed to evaluate the hemodynamic feasibility using pulse parameters as a way to establish safe dose guidelines for herbal prescription containing Ephedra herb (Ephedra intermedia Schrenk & C.A.Mey) on weight loss, and to provide a foundation for developing evidence-based guidelines for clinical use. Methods: Forty-two volunteers were recruited to participate in a study examining the changes in pulse wave characteristics following the ingestion of Gambi-hwan, a herbal prescription containing ephedra, over a period of 4 weeks, and pulse wave measurements were taken before and after the administration. Pulse wave parameters were measured in this study using a 3-dimensional radial pulse tonometry device (DMP-Lifeplus). In addition, questionnaire, blood pressure, temperature, and body composition were also measured as secondary measures. Results: Fifteen minutes after administration of Gambi-hwan, the non-adverse event group (non-AE) exhibited a statistically significant increase in several power and pressure-related parameters, including h1, h5, systolic area, pulse area, and pulse width, while the AE group showed a trend of decreasing stroke volume and increasing Radial Augmentation Index (RAI), w, and w/t. After 4 weeks of administration, both groups exhibited significant changes in pulse rate, w/t, RAI, t3/t, stroke volume (SV), and stroke volume Index (SVI). Notably, there are significant differences between AE group and non-AE group in w/t, SV, and SVI. Conclusions: These findings suggest that pulse parameters may be a useful way to establish safe dosing guidelines for weight loss herbal prescription containing ephedra. Further research is needed to confirm these results and to develop evidence-based guidelines for clinical use.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.88-108
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• 2001

Separation of prescribing and dispensing practice in Korea has changed the service pattern of the pharmacy. The prescription dispensing activities, however, are concentrated excessively on the pharmacies near hospitals or clinics. Thus this study was conducted to estimate the number of optimal dispensing cases for the community pharmacy. Forty-six pharmacies were selected using systematic stratified random sampling method, and ninety-five pharmacists were interviewed on their workload of dispensing and other activities at pharmacies. One hundred and seventy prescriptions were chosen based on the length of drug administration and drug dosage form, and the dispensing time was measured by time-watch method. Also pharmacy benefit claims data were analyzed to identify the characteristics of the pharmacies which performed more than optimal dispensing cases. According to the study results, the average work time per pharmacist per day was found to be 10hours 32minutes and the dispensing activities occupied 7hours 36minutes. It took 5.72minutes on average for each dispensing case. The optimal dispensing case was estimated as 75 cases under the condition of 10hours 32minutes work time and 6% allowance rate. Even though the pharmacies near hospitals or clinics participated dispensing services actively, only pharmacies near clinics dealt with more than optimal dispensing cases. For the pharmacies near hospitals they dealt with less than optimal cases, but drug administration period per prescription was almost 3 times longer than that of pharmacies near clinics. Thus the intensity of dispensing activities such as drug administration period is to be considered to estimate optimal dispensing cases more accurately.