• Quality Improvement in Health Care
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.64-80
• /
• 1997

Background : An important issue in health care today is in trying to center service around the hospitalized patient. There is a "Kindness Movement" developing now, where in the focus of Health Care is being changed from simply treating the basic physical needs of the patient with sophisticated technology, to keeping emotional well being healthy with more humane and attentive treatment. In our attempt to reach the goal of a completely satisfied patient, we undertook a study of the common complaints of patients, and the subsequent nature of the interventions. Method : The study was carried out in two stages, first the patients made known their complaints by filling out questionnaires, then we collected data on the attempts to alleviate the complaints. The questionnaire provided 19 different complaints, which were then analysed for such variables as content, source of complaint, persons treating the complaint, and length of time and method used to solve the complaint. Results : 1. The Chief complaints made by patients(99.1%) were of physical discomfort, such as pain, nausea, vomiting, indigestion, diarrhea and constipation. 2. The complaints were voiced primarily by either of the patient's family, or by the patients themselves(78.4). 3. The complaints were intervened by nurses alone(53.5%), physicians alone(25.5%), or by nurses and physicians together(19.25%). 4, The method by which the complaints were resolved included the utilization of prescriptions(55.7%), further explanation and education(25. 5%) and notification after treatment(13.2%). 5. Most complaints were voiced during the dayshift(42.6%, 7:00-15:00), followed by the evening shift(36.0% 15:00~22:00), and then the nightshift(21.3 %, 22:00-07:00). 6. The time required for successful resolution of the patient's problems varied from 10~88.9min, according to the nature of the complaint. Conclusion : Hopefully by knowing beforehand the nature of both complaint and intervention, we can anticipate problems and shorten reaction time, in order to provide for a more satisfied patient.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.83-92
• /
• 2024

It is a common observation that whenever any patient arrives at the front desk of a hospital, outpatient clinic, or other health-associated centers, they have to first queue up in a line and wait to fill in their registration form to get admitted. The long waiting time without any status updates is the most common complaint, worrying health officials. In this paper, UrNext, a location-aware mobile-based solution using Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) technology, is presented to solve the problem. Recently, a technology-oriented method has been gaining popularity in solving the healthcare sector's problems, namely the Internet of Things (IoT). The implementation of this solution could be explained through a simple example that when a patient arrives at a clinic for her consultation. There, instead of having to wait in long lines, she will be greeted automatically, receive a push notification telling her that she has been admitted along with an estimated waiting time for her consultation session. This will not only provide the patients with a sense of freedom but would also reduce uncertainty levels that are generally observed, thus saving both time and money. This work aimed to improve clinics' quality of services and organize queues and minimize waiting times in clinics, leading to patient comfortability and reducing the burden on nurses and receptionists. The results demonstrated that the presented system was successful in its performance and helped achieve high usability.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.249-254
• /
• 2020

It is difficult to control children who exhibit negative behavior in dental clinics. Various methods are used for preventing pediatric dental patients from being afraid and for eliminating the factors that cause psychological anxiety. However, when it is difficult to apply this routine behavioral control technique, sedation therapy is used to provide quality treatment. When the sleep anesthesia treatment is performed at the dentist's clinic, it is challenging to identify emergencies using the current breath detection method. When a dentist treats a patient that is under the influence of an anesthetic, the patient is unconscious and cannot immediately respond, even if the airway is blocked, which can cause unstable breathing or even death in severe cases. During emergencies, respiratory instability is not easily detected with first aid using conventional methods owing to time lag or noise from medical devices. Therefore, abnormal breathing needs to be evaluated in real-time using an intuitive method. In this paper, we propose a method for identifying abnormal breathing in real-time using an intuitive method. Respiration signals were measured using a 3M Littman electronic stethoscope when the patient's posture was supine. The characteristics of the signals were analyzed by applying the signal processing theory to distinguish abnormal breathing from normal breathing. By applying a short-time Fourier transform to the respiratory signals, the frequency range for each patient was found to be different, and the frequency of abnormal breathing was distributed across a broader range than that of normal breathing. From the wavelet transform, time-frequency information could be identified simultaneously, and the change in the amplitude with the time could also be determined. When the difference between the amplitude of normal breathing and abnormal breathing in the time domain was very large, abnormal breathing could be identified.

• Proceedings of the Korean Statistical Society Conference
• /
• 2004.11a
• /
• pp.289-294
• /
• 2004

We consider M/G/1 queue in which the customers are classified into n+1 classes by their impatience time. First, we analyze the model of two types of customers; one is the customer with constant impatience duration k and the other is patient customer. The expected busy period of the server and the limiting distribution of the virtual waiting time process are obtained. Then, the model is generalized to the one in which there are classes of customers according to their impatience duration.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.65-70
• /
• 2016

The Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) accreditation system was initiated in 2013 in the form of mandatory accreditation system in order to improve patient safety and the quality of medical service at LTCHs. By June 2016, the accredited LTCHs were 76.2%. This research was conducted to review the implementation process in the first cycle and to promote development of the second cycle of LTCH accreditation system. There are some changes which reinforced the accreditation standards, accreditation survey, and public access to accreditation results in order to strengthen patient safety in the first cycle LTCH accreditation system. LTCHs which participated in the accreditation system achieved certain outcomes in respect to patient safety and employee satisfaction. However, there are several urgent problems in placement criteria of night duty health care providers, reinforcement plans in the accreditation system, and incentives for accredited hospitals. In order to solve these problems, the most important thing is to clearly recognize the fact that the healthcare accreditation system is not the means for control and regulate hospitals but a system to induce hospitals to continue to strive for improvements in patient safety and medical service quality. In addition, it is required that LTCHs, accrediting agency and the Ministry of Health and Welfare compromise and cooperate to seek solutions every time issues related to the accreditation system arise.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.57 no.4
• /
• pp.429-434
• /
• 2019

A complicated case of echinococcosis with multiple organ involvement is reported in a 53-year-old businessman who frequently traveled overseas, including China, Russia, and Kazakhstan from 2001 to 2007. The patient was first diagnosed with a large liver cyst during a screening abdomen ultrasonography in 2011, but he did not follow up on the lesion afterwards. Six years later, dizziness, dysarthria, and cough developed, and cystic lesions were found in the brain, liver and lungs. The clinical course was complicated when the patient went through multiple surgeries and inadequate treatment with a short duration of albendazole without a definite diagnosis. The patient visited our hospital for the first time in August 2018 due to worsening symptoms; he was finally diagnosed with echinococcosis using imaging and serologic criteria. He is now on prolonged albendazole treatment (400 mg twice a day) with gradual clinical and radiological improvement. A high index of suspicion is warranted to early diagnose echinococcosis in a patient with a travel history to endemic areas of echinococcosis.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.206-211
• /
• 2011

Purpose: Laparoscopic total gastrectomy (LTG) for gastric cancer is still uncommon because of technical difficulties, especially in esophagojejunostomy (EJ). There are many reports for various laparoscopic procedures of EJ using linear or circular staplers. On the other hands, there has been no report for hand-sewn anastomosis. We report successfully performed intracorporeally hand-sewn EJ after LTG. Materials and Methods: The clinicopathologic data and short-term surgical outcomes of 6 patients who underwent totally laparoscopic total gastrectomy for upper gastric cancer from December 2010 and July 2011 were retrospectively reviewed. Results: The mean age was 66.5 years and mean body mass index (kg/$m^2$) was 24.6. All patients had medical comorbidities. The mean patient ASA score was 2.17. Among the 6 patients, previous abdominal operation was performed for 2 patients and combined operation was performed for 3 patients. The mean blood loss, operation time, and EJ anastomosis time was 130 ml, 379.7 minutes, and 81.5 minutes, respectively. The mean time to first flatus, first oral intake, and postoperative hospital stay was 3.0, 3.0, and 12.5 days, respectively. There was no 30-day mortality case. Postoperative aspiration pneumonia and multiple periventricular lacunar infarctions developed in 1 patient. There were no anastomosis-related complications and other major surgical complications. Conclusions: When the intracorporeal anastomotic technique becomes popular in LTG the intracorporeally hand-sewn EJ may be accepted as one method among the various laparoscopic procedures of EJ.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.659-669
• /
• 2000

Many patients of acute myocardial infarction showed delay time before seeking treatment although they needed immediate thrombolytic therapy once they perceived their symptoms. The objectives of this study were to identify the relationship between clinical symptoms and the delay, and to find the time spent before seeking the treatment. This study was a retrospective research. The delay time for the treatment consisted of the length of delay from symptom onset to patients' decision (T1), from patients' decision making to finding transportation (T2), and from taking transportation to the first hospital arrival(T3). The subjects were 89 patients who were admitted in the ICU and Cardiac Ward at Chonnam University Hospital with the first attack of acute myocardial infarction. Center, USA The data was collected for three months from March 1st to May 31st of 1998 through questionnaires and reviewing patients' charts: The chart information was suppled by two nurses working at the ICU and Cardiac Ward. The data was analyzed by using frequency, mean and ANOVA through the SAS program. The results of study summarized as follows: 1. Sixty two patients (69.7%) were male and twenty seven patients (30.3%) were female, the ratio of male to female was 2.3 : 1. 2. In daily life, the 70.8% of the patients felt chest pain and discomfort fatigue in 67.4%, dyspnea in 57.3%, and pain in arm, neck, and jaw in 52.8%. During the attack, 97.8% of the patients felt chest pain and discomfort dyspnea in 82.1%, pain in arm, neck, jaw in 67.4% and perspiration in 51.7%. 3. The length of time a patient spent seeking time for treatment (T1+T2+T3) was 94.6 minutes, in which the time for patients' decision making for treatment (T1) was 70.3 minutes, time for finding transportation (T2) was 8.2 minutes, and time for the transportation of the patient to the first hospital (T3) was 16.1 minutes. Time for patients' decision making to go to a hospital(T1) was 74.2% of the total time sought for treatment. 4. The differences of time sought for treatment between perceptions about the seriousness of the symptoms were significant (F= 6.5, p< .01). The more serious the heart symptoms they felt, the shorter the seeking time for treatment. 5. The differences of the time delay before treatment between the degree of the symptoms were significant (F= 2.9, p< .05). The patients with the typical chest pain and discomfort spent shorter the seeking time for treatment than those with the atypical symptoms of acute myocardial infarction. 6. The differences of transportation time to the first hospital between the types of cars that the patients used, were significant (F= 4.3, p< .01). When the patients used 119 or 129 they spent the least time (5.3 minutes) for transportation, and followed by way of an ambulance (15.6 minutes), private car (20.6 minutes), and taxi (24.8 minutes).

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.237-242
• /
• 1980

This is a case report of spontaneous regression of elevated pulmonary vascular resistance after the age of 6 years in a patient with partial endocardial cushion defect. The patient was first evaluated and considered to be highly risky for surgical correction because of obstructive type of pulmonary hypertension and presisting congestive heart failure at the age of 6 years, during which time medical treatment for congestive heart failure and sufferring from respiratory infection were only provided. Finally the patient was reevaluated at the age of 16 years, in January of 1980 when cardiac catheterization was revealed markedly reduced pulmonary vascular resistance and pulmonary hypertension as well. The patient was operated upon with uneventful postoperative recovery. So we report this case with review of the literatures regarding natural history regarding natural history of partial endocardial cushion defect.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.157-164
• /
• 2007

The SRP program(stress reduction program) is reported has a good effect to patient to escape from anxiety. To reduce several symptoms due to anxiety, we performed some SRP programs to our patient who had suffered anxiety disorder. The measurement tools of patient's improvement we used are Heart Rate Variability and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Through this programs, symptoms and feeling of anxiety were decreased than first time and Autonomic nerve system balance was much improved. this is caused by effort of self-control meditation, mindfullness, breathing instruction and muscle relaxation program.