• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.51-64
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• 2018

Purposes : In February 2014, the government said that the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) will enforce plan for reducing the financial burden from two major non-covered services including physician surcharges and private room charges, the main causes to increase uninsured, by 2017. The purpose of this study is to analyze the policy effect that performed so far by comparing out-of-pocket payment rates of policy process Methodology: This study analyzed admission medical expenses that occurred from January 2013 to March 2016 at a upper grade general hospitals in Daejeon. Number of study subjects were 134,924 and the data were analyzed with SPSS 22.0 program by using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, ANOVA. The effect of two major non-payment improvement plan on out-of-pocket rates was ascertained via generalized estimating equation. Findings: Out-of-pocket payment rates was statistically significantly declined 2.7 percent than enforcement ago. Also, out-of-pocket payment, physician surcharge, the proportion of out-of-pocket payment of hospital room charge to out-of-pocket payment was statistically significantly declined. However, a further analysis of the cause of the decline in total medical costs is needed. Practical Implications: Physician surcharges and private room charges improvement policy had a positive effect on the decline of out-of-pocket payment rate. The policy of physician surcharges was very effective after the first policy enforcement but it was less effective to medical aids and near poor that was a more greater coverage than national health insurance. Since the policy has not been finalized, we have to continue a research for the successful implementation of the policy.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.58-67
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• 1995

Background: This paper describes an effort to provide baseline informations for appropriate utilization of emergency room in a tertiary hospital. Methods: Authors have evaluated that the admissions in the emergency room were medically necessary by objective criteria, Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol(AEP), for one month in a tertiary hospital. Data were analysed by chi-square test and multiple logistic regression to exmaine statistical significances at the level of 0.05. Results: The prevalence of inappropriate decisions for admission was found to be 47.8%(154/322). Whether the physician decided the patient to admit or not was affected by type of services, number of departments involved, patients' medical condition, route of visit, and a day of the week visited. Level of appropriateness of admission is significantly related to patients' age, type of services, and a day of the week visited. Conclusion: We found that substantial proportion of admissions through emergency room are medically unnecessary and that non-medical factors are related to physician's for admission decisions and level of appropriateness of admission. This suggests that policy measures be required to relieve the overcrowding problem and to reduce non-emergent utilization of emergency room in a tertiary hospital.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.27-44
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• 2009

The length of stay in emergency departments has been used as a quality indicator to reflect the overall efficiency of emergency care. Identifying characteristics associated with length of stay is critical to monitor overcrowding and improve efficient throughput function of emergency departments. This study examined the level of waiting time for initial assessment by physician and length of stay in emergency departments. Furthermore, we investigated the characteristics of patients' attendance associated with length of stay. An observational study was performed for a sample of 1,526 patients visiting ten nation-wide emergency departments. A structured form was designed to collect information about patients' demographics, route of admission, time and mode of arrival, triage level, cause of attendance, initial assessment time by physician, departure time, and disposition. Multiple regression analysis was performed to determine factors associated with length of stay. The average length of stay was 209.4 minutes (95% confidence interval [CI]=197.1-221.7), with a mean waiting time for initial assessment of 5.9 minutes (95% CI=5.1-6.7). After controlling for emergency department characteristics, increasing age, longer waiting times, attendance due to diseases, higher acuity, multiple diagnoses($\geq$2) and requiring admission or transfer to other health care facilities were positively associated with length of stay in emergency departments. The findings suggest that both patients' characteristics and the flow between emergency departments and parent hospitals should be taken into account in predicting length of stay in emergency departments.

• Archives of design research
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.391-398
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• 2002

This study attempts to suggest a new direction of the plastic arts education, first by examining a variety of cases in the admission policy depending on the existence of students' preeducation; and second, by analyzing the work process of students who were admitted. The flexible admission policy should be provided to select both groups of students: students with preeducation and students without preeducation. It is requested that the uniform selectional standard adopted by most universities should be changed into the diverse standards that can evaluate different educational back ground of students. This study will be helpful for the university professors to prepare for the new educational foundation and direction by enhancing the efficiency of teaching. This study also aims to suggest the curriculum and methods of the design education to provide the effective teaching of plastic arts and there by develop the better methods of education in this area.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.287-296
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• 2008

The IEEE 802.11 wireless standard uses the carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) as its MAC protocol (during the distributed coordination function period). This protocol is an adaptation of the CSMA/CD of the wired networks. CSMA/CA mechanism cannot guarantee quality of service (QoS) required by the application because orits random access method. In this study, we propose a new MAC protocol that considers different types of traffic (e.g., voice and data) and for each traffic type different priority levels are assigned. To improve the QoS of IEEE 802.11 MAC protocols over a multi-channel CSMA/CA, we have developed a new admission policy for both voice and data traffics. This protocol can be performed in direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) or frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS). For voice traffic we reserve a channel, while for data traffic the access is random using a CSMA/CA mechanism, and in this case a selective reject and push-out mechanism is added to meet the quality of service required by data traffic. To study the performance of the proposed protocol and to show the benefits of our design, a mathematical model is built based on Markov chains. The system could be represented by a Markov chain which is difficult to solve as the state-space is too large. This is due to the resource management and user mobility. Thus, we propose to build an aggregated Markov chain with a smaller state-space that allows performance measures to be computed easily. We have used stochastic comparisons of Markov chains to prove that the proposed access protocol (with selective reject and push-out mechanisms) gives less loss rates of high priority connections (data and voices) than the traditional one (without admission policy and selective reject and push-out mechanisms). We give numerical results to confirm mathematical proofs.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2003

The principal objective of this study was to analyze and conceptualize the socio-psychological burden in utilizing a nursing home for elderly. The subjects were five elderly from a private nursing home located in Seoul and their familial caregivers. An old male and three females were currently staying at the facility, and a female had been discharged already from there. Data were collected through depth interviews, observations and review of records at the facility For analysis, the data were classified by similar contents among significant expressions and factors in common. The subjects' motives to consider admission to the nursing home might be attributed to familial caregivers' burden, a shortage of support, environmental improvement and feeling of helplessness for the case elderly. The concept of burden is including family members' being badly off in living, their weariness, complications among family members, feeling psychological uneasiness, and hospital expenses. The identified image of nursing homes for the elderly in Korea was generally negative at the point of high cost, unreasonable requisites and limitations for admission to the facilities, inferior situations, and especially in that there were few long-term care facilities within the community boundary. From their experience of nursing homes, the interviewees have felt the sentiments of sorry for their old parents, with the thought of being an undutiful, bitterness, and empathy. Additionally, they expressed a sense of anxiety of relative deprivation against the fact that there were no long-term care facilities available for the middle class. On the basis of these, multi-dimensional needs could be identified for the elderly with chronic illnesses.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.617-642
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• 2011

The purpose of our study is to analyze the determinants of the benefits of the long-term care insurance in Korea using 2008 and 2009 cross-sectional data. Per capita long-term care insurance benefits can be divided into home care services utilization rate, institutional care services utilization rate, per capita home care services benefits, and per capita institutional care services benefits, which are used as the dependent variables in our regression analysis. Admission rate and the ratio of the admitted to the applicant also used as the dependent variables. The results of our analysis show that the explanatory variables such as income level, needs for care, family type, access to the services, and regional characteristics are statistically significant to explain the dependent variables, the long-term care insurance benefits. The higher is the regional income and the more of the female residents, the more are the long-term care insurance benefits. The easier is the access to the services, the more are the insurance benefits. In the rural area, the level of the insurance benefits is relatively high. We propose that copayment rates of the long-term care insurance should be examined and monitoring on the over-use of the services should be done. Also preventive services and care by the family member should be expanded.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.347-352
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• 2014

In this paper, we propose a Markovian queueing model(M/M/1)-based call admission control to reduce forced terminating rate of non-real secondary user's call for Multi-services Cognitive Radio Networks. A existing control has a problem that the forced terminating rate increases because of adopting a policy of spectrum priority allocation to real calls. In our scheme the rate can be reduced as the call that has no useful spectrum waits in a queue until getting an available spectrum. Our scheme use a neural-net based prediction of primary user's reappearance. Through the simulation, we analysis the call forced terminating rate, access delay and spectrum utilization efficiency, and then show that our scheme can more reduce the forced terminating rate of the call, compared to that of the existing algorithm.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.193-200
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• 2012

This study aims to provide an important base resource for the effective medical supply system construction by figuring out the characteristics and changes of admission medical use of gastritis in 160 middle treatment areas classified by 2008 patient examination resources, and by figuring out factors affecting on changes. As a result, in terms of admission rate according to sex and age standardization per small area, there were differences as EQ was 15.1 and CV was 0.4. Top 10 variations were mainly in rural areas. It showed significant positive relations between admission and the number of bed, doctor and special medical equipment per 10,000 population. It is recommended that the government set a priority in the management of regional bed supply and the distribution of efficient medical resources.

• Journal of Korean Critical Care Nursing
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.51-63
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• 2011

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the effects of extended family visiting hours in the intensive care unit (ICU). Methods: The subjects were 168 ICU patients and their family members. Two 30-minute visits a day were allowed to the control group according to current policy, while four 30-minute visits a day were allowed to the experimental group. Patients' state anxiety was measured at the first day of ICU admission, and on the third day of ICU admission patients' anxiety and family satisfaction were measured. For the infection rate, comparison was made between the experimental and control data-collecting periods. Results: The patients' state anxiety significantly decreased in the experimental group. Family satisfaction of experimental group was significantly higher than that of control group. There was no significant difference in the infection rate. Nurses positively evaluated extension of visiting hours because it could stabilize patients, reduce the number of arrangements for additional visits, and help establish trust relationship with families. Conclusion: Extended family visiting hours in the ICU reduced patients' anxiety and improved family satisfaction but had no effect on the infection rate. Extended family visiting hours in the ICU is expected to improve the quality of critical care.