• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.86-100
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• 2008

It is needed to classify the kinds of construction and demolition(c&d) debris to 6 catagories of waste concrete, waste asphalt concrete, waste wood, scraps, combustible waste and incombustible waste in order to properly do a separate discharge and to estimate unit generation rate in construction site. Also, in this case, the unit treating cost for mixed wastes should be applied with the unit treating cost for combustible waste. The construction standard materials estimation data is used for basic data for estimating unit generation rate. The mixed wastes in this data should be classified to waste wood, combustible waste and incombustible waste, and their ratio is obtained by using the unit generation rate of Asia Pacific Environment and Management Institute and Seoul Metropolitan Development Institute. The waste amounts generated from newly-built construction can be obtained from multiplying the loss rate by the amount of materials used from construction standard estimation data. Also, those from dismantling construction can be obtained by subtracting waste amount generated during newly-built construction from total input amount of materials in newly-built construction. Those in two cases can be used in construction site. It can be used for estimating the amount generated and establishing the treating plan in the case of setting up the policy of waste management and doing the environment impact assessment.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.149-158
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• 2006

Objectives : We wanted to evaluate the economic value of a pharmaceutical product, Kremezin, for treating patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) by estimating the amount of cost savings due to its effect for delaying the initiation of dialysis treatments. Methods : We defined a conventional treatment for CRF accompanied by Kremezin therapy as 'the treatment group' and only conventional treatment as 'the alternative group.' The types of costs included were direct medical and nonmedical costs and costs of productivity loss. The information on the effect of Kremezin was obtained from the results of earlier clinical studies. Cost information was derived from the administrative data for 20 hemodialysis and 20 peritoneal dialysis patients from one tertiary care hospital, and also from the administrative data of 10 hemodialysis patients from one free-standing dialysis center. Per-capita cost savings resulting from Kremezin therapy were separately estimated for the cases with delay for the onset of hemodialysis and the cases with immediate performance of peritoneal dialysis. By computing the weighted average for the cases of hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis, the expected per-capita cost savings of a patient with CRF was obtained. Using a discount rate of 5%, future cost savings were converted to the present value. Results : The present value of cumulative cost savings per patient with CRF from the societal perspective would be $18,555,000{\sim}29,410,000$ Won or $72,104,000{\sim}112,523,000$ Won if Kremezin delays the initiation of dialysis by 1 or 4 years. Conclusions : The estimated amount of cost savings resulting from treating CRF patients with Kremezin confirms that its effect for delaying the onset of dialysis treatments has a considerable economic value.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.135-164
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• 2003

The operating room is the major facility that costs the highest investment per unit area in a hospital. It requires commitment of hospital resources such as manpower, equipments and material. The quantity of these resources committed actually differs from one type of operation to another. Because of this, it is not an easy task to allocate the operating cost to individual clinical departments that share the operating room. A practical way to do so may be to collect and add the operating costs incurred by each clinical department and charge the net cost to the account of the corresponding clinical department. It has been customary to allocate the cost of the operating room to the account of each individual department on the basis of the ratio of the number of operations of the department or the total revenue by each operating room. In an attempt to set up more rational cost allocation method than the customary method, this study proposes a new cost allocation method that calls for itemizing the operation cost into its constituent expenses in detail and adding them up for the operating cost incurred by each individual department. For comparison of the new method with the conventional method, the operating room in the main building of hospital A near Seoul is chosen as a study object. It is selected because it is the biggest operating room in hospital A and most of operations in this hospital are conducted in this room. For this study the one-month operation record performed in January 2001 in this operating room is analyzed to allocate the per-month operation cost to six clinical departments that used this operating room; the departments of general surgery, orthopedic surgery, neuro-surgery, dental surgery, urology, and obstetrics & gynecology. In the new method(or method 1), each operation cost is categorized into three major expenses; personnel expense, material expense, and overhead expense and is allocated into the account of the clinical department that used the operating room. The method 1 shows that, among the total one-month operating cost of 814,054 thousand wons in this hospital, 163,714 thousand won is allocated to GS, 335,084 thousand won to as, 202,772 thousand won to NS, 42,265 thousand won to uno, 33,423 thousand won to OB/GY, and 36.796 thousand won to DS. The allocation of the operating cost to six departments by the new method is quite different from that by the conventional method. According to one conventional allocation method based on the ratio of the number of operations of a department to the total number of operations in the operating room(method 2 hereafter), 329,692 thousand won are allocated to GS, 262,125 thousand won to as, 87,104 thousand won to NS, 59,426 thousand won to URO, 51.285 thousand won to OB/GY, and 24,422 thousand won to DS. According to the other conventional allocation method based on the ratio of the revenue of a department(method 3 hereafter), 148,158 thousand won are allocated to GS, 272,708 thousand won to as, 268.638 thousand won to NS, 45,587 thousand won to uno, 51.285 thousand won to OB/GY, and 27.678 thousand won to DS. As can be noted from these results, the cost allocation to six departments by method 1 is strikingly different from those by method 2 and method 3. The operating cost allocated to GS by method 2 is about twice by method 1. Method 3 makes allocations of the operating cost to individual departments very similarly as method 1. However, there are still discrepancies between the two methods. In particular the cost allocations to OB/GY by the two methods have roughly 53.4% discrepancy. The conventional methods 2 and 3 fail to take into account properly the fact that the average time spent for the operation is different and dependent on the clinical department, whether or not to use expensive clinical material dictate the operating cost, and there is difference between the official operating cost and the actual operating cost. This is why the conventional methods turn out to be inappropriate as the operating cost allocation methods. In conclusion, the new method here may be laborious and cause a complexity in bookkeeping because it requires detailed bookkeeping of the operation cost by its constituent expenses and also by individual clinical department, treating each department as an independent accounting unit. But the method is worth adopting because it will allow the concerned hospital to estimate the operating cost as accurately as practicable. The cost data used in this study such as personnel expense, material cost, overhead cost may not be correct ones. Therefore, the operating cost estimated in the main text may not be the same as the actual cost. Also, the study is focused on the case of only hospital A, which is hardly claimed to represent the hospitals across the nation. In spite of these deficiencies, this study is noteworthy from the standpoint that it proposes a practical allocation method of the operating cost to each individual clinical department.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.65 no.3
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• pp.136-141
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• 2022

Background: High-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) is a noninvasive respiratory support that provides the optimum flow of an air-oxygen mixture. Several studies demonstrated its usefulness and good safety profile for treating pediatric respiratory distress patients. However, the cost of the commercial HFNC is high; therefore, the modified high-flow nasal cannula was developed. Purpose: This study aimed to compare the effectiveness, safety, and nurses' satisfaction of the modified system versus the standard commercial HFNC. Methods: This prospective comparative study was performed in a tertiary care hospital. We recruited children aged 1 month to 5 years who developed acute respiratory distress and were admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit. Patients were assigned to 2 groups (modified vs. commercial). The effectiveness and safety assessments included vital signs, respiratory scores, intubation rate, adverse events, and nurses' satisfaction. Results: A total of 74 patients were treated with HFNC. Thirtynine patients were assigned to the modified group, while the remaining 35 patients were in the commercial group. Intubation rate and adverse events did not differ significantly between the 2 groups. However, the commercial group had higher nurses' satisfaction scores than the modified group. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that our low-cost modified HFNC could be a useful respiratory support option for younger children with acute respiratory distress, especially in hospital settings with financial constraints.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.109-116
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• 1976

Reorganization of myun health care service is one of the main issues in health care delivery in rural Korea. The fundamenta, concept of the role and function of the myun health subcenter is that it is the basic unit of rural health care service and is to provide comprehensive health care service through the integration of curative and preventive services. The aim of this study is to analyze the patterns of curative activities in the myun health subcenter in terms of the most prevalent types of diseases, necessary diagnostic methods and required equipment, types of treatment, necessary drugs and materials, and finally the cost of curative services. The population on which this study was done was the 1596 patients who visited the two myun health subcenters (Sunwon Myun and Naega Myun) in Kang Wha County, the area of the Yonsei University Community Health Teaching Project, during period from May 1, 1975 to June 10, 1976. For the patient's record in the clinic, problem oriented medical records were used. Decisions regarding the disease classification, the diagnostic methods used and selection of the most appropriate and adequate medical treatment were made by a group of three experienced physicians after reviewing the medical records which had been written by public physicians who were treating patients in the study area. The records were reviewed by resident staff members of the Department of Preventive Medicine, of Yonsei University College of Medicine. A brief summary of results of the study is as follow: 1. 29.9% of the patients who visited the clinics were ages between 0-4. No sex difference was observed among patients less than 20 years of age. However, among patients over 20 years old, females predominated. Thus it is evident that the majority of patients were either children or mothers and grandmothers. 2. The distance from the individual villages to the myun health subcenter was one of important factors in determining the ratio of clinic visits. However, other factors such as the activities of the health workers also affected the rates substantially. 3. The most common 25 diseases comprised 90.2% of all the diseases recorded. Acute respiratory infection (25.5%), Skin (12.7%) , diarrheal diseases (6.8%), neuralgia and back pain (4.9%) and. all other injuries (3.9%) were the five most common diseases. 4. Of all the diseases diagnosed and treated, 9.2% required simple laboratory tests for diagnosis, 6.5% required X-ray examination, and altogether 13.6% required either laboratory test or X-ray examination. 5. Treatment and management of 42.0% of the cases could be accomplished with simple, inexpensive drugs, 12.8% required the use of more expensive drugs (mostly antibiotics) and injections were required in 19.7% of the cases. Minor surgery and referral were necessary in 5% of the cases. 6. The cost for diagnosis and treatment was estimated with a standard which was set by general concensus. The average cost of diagnosis was 144 per case and the cost of treatment was 726 per case, The Total average cost per visit was 870.

• CELLMED
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.2.1-2.8
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• 2021

The clinical condition Amnesia causes difficulty in learning new information and the inability to recall past events. It is primarily concerned with recent memory loss. Majoon-e-Nisyan (MJN) is a polyherbal Unani formulation, present in a semi-solid form. It is widely used potent drug of the Unani System of Medicine (USM) for treating Nisyan (amnesia). In the present study polyherbal Unani formulation, MJN has been studied for its quality control and acute toxicity. Standardization (quality control) of drugs deals with drug identity, drug quality and purity determination. Standardization of MJN had been done as per the Unani pharmacopoeial parameters approved by World Health Organization (WHO) - Pharmacognostical parameters, Physico-chemical parameters, high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC), microbial load, aflatoxin, and heavy metals. Solvents and chemicals used in the study were of analytical grade and used instrument were calibrated. By conducting an acute oral toxicity study in rats, the safety of MJN was assessed. The limit test method of OECD guideline 425 was followed in the study. Results of standardization and standard operating procedures (SOPs) for preparation of MJN may serve as the standard reference in the future. The data generated in the study for the quality control of MJN proved the quality of formulation and shows that MJN is not toxic in rats following acute dosing up to 2000 mg/kg bw. The data obtained in the paper for MJN may be used as a standard guideline for preparation of the formulation which can save time, cost, and resources for future research endeavours.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.194-205
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• 2023

Objectives : This study investigated the current utilization status of thermotherapy devices in Korean medicine (KM) institutions and identified areas for improvement and further development, as perceived by KM doctors (KMDs). Methods : An online survey was conducted, targeting KMDs primarily engaged in clinical patient care. The questionnaire included items about respondents' clinical practices, the extent of thermotherapy device usage, their opinions on these devices, and perceived improvement needs. The collected data underwent quantitative analysis. Results : From the 1,025 respondents, data from 862 respondents who provided complete responses were analyzed. On average, respondents utilized thermotherapy treatments for 80% of their patients. Infrared (IR) phototherapy unit, electrical moxibustion apparatus, and heater-based thermotherapy devices were predominantly owned by respondents, with IR being the most frequently used. The average satisfaction score for current thermotherapy devices was 79. A significant concern raised was the necessity for improved health insurance coverage and efficacy evaluation. Conclusions : This research has confirmed that the extensive use of thermotherapy devices by KMDs in treating primarily musculoskeletal and gastrointestinal ailments - common conditions among patients in KM institutions. The main areas identified for improvement encompass safety, cost-effectiveness, and device efficacy. Future enhancements in thermotherapy devices should address these crucial aspects.