• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.13 no.8
• /
• pp.483-493
• /
• 2015

Industrialization and urbanization have caused health inequality between rural areas and cities. Health care in rural area is insufficient comparing to urban areas. This study examined the effects of social capital, Health Information, and medical communication factors on Health status in rural community using structural equation modeling. First, social capital has an effect on medical communication with physicians and medical communication impacts on health status. Second, health information orientation has an impact on health behavior and Internet health information. Lastly, health information orientation influenced by Internet health information as a mediator affects health status. As a whole, this study contributes to theoretical explanation about determinants of health status in communities by examining structural path of the effects of social factors and communication factors on health status in rural area.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.266-280
• /
• 2013

Background: Information asymmetry between physicians and patients is one of the most unique characteristics of health care. But as consumerism spreads in health care sector, health care consumers are searching comparative information about quality and cost of providers from many information sources. Providing comparative information to health care consumers not only makes consumers choose hospital rationally, but also invigorates the health care market by providers' competition. However there are few studies regarding information searching behavior of health care consumers, then this study is carried out. Methods: The purpose of this study is to understand the information searching behavior of health care consumers based on their characteristics and the types of medical institutions. For this purpose, 313 spinal patients' data of 11 medical institutions (university hospital, spine specialized hospital, clinic) located in Seoul were collected by self-administered surveys. Results: The results of this study are as follows: 1) t-test/analysis of variance analysis showed that according to various characteristics of health care consumers and the types of medical institutions, the level of information searching of each source and the amount of information searching and searching outcomes are statistically different. 2) Regression analysis showed that influence on searching outcomes are statistically different according to the level of information searching of each source and searching content and the amount of information searching has positive effects on searching outcomes. Conclusion: The significance of this study is to provide empirical basis for establishment of health care policy reflecting information needs and preference of health care consumers.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.91-103
• /
• 2010

Objectives: This study was designed to understand the association between sociodemographic characteristics, health behaviors and channels retrieved for health information. Methods: Questionnaire survey was performed from April 2007 to May 2007 through household visiting. Sample was selected according to gender, household income, and residence district. We got 1,009 respondents and subgroups were as follows; 508 people had health insurance, 250 people were medical indigent group, and 251 people were medicaid beneficiaries. Results: People seemed to be separated into subgroups by channels used for health information. One was active and the other was passive group. Characteristics of passive group were older age, worker or inoccupation, less income, subjective poverty, lower education, loss of spouse, medical indigent or medicaid group. They usually got health information through mass media like TV and radio or medical professionals. Characteristics of active group were younger age, professional, more income, subjective affluence, higher education, single or married, and member of health insurance. They mainly got health information through printed media like newspaper or the Internet. Conclusion: We suggest to provide health information through various channels customed to individual needs and literacy. Public health stakeholders seems better to focus on people with low education, insufficient health literacy, poor health status, and short information technology.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.260-266
• /
• 2020

This study presents the categorical structure for ther epresentation of a 3D human body position system in the WD stage after NP approval by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), analyzes the needs of electronic medical record users and establishes future implementation plans for expanding its use in Korea. Research was conducted on the needs of doctors, nurses, health and medical information managers, and radiology departments, which are the main stakeholders of electronic medical records. The overall requirements for electronic medical records were derived from the results, and the requirements for each stage of use of electronic medical records were analyzed. Based on the results of the study, the study proposes plans to expand the use of the categorical structure for the representation of the 3D human body position system, and also aims to establish a standard system for health and medical terminology in Korea and contribute to the development of health and medical information standards through international standardization.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.61-76
• /
• 2003

As people get broader access to health information through the internet, there is a greater need for measure to maximize the social advantages of the internet and to minimize negative side-effects. With this concern, this paper classifies internet health information services sites into : on-line supply of health information, on-line consultation, on-line diagnosis, and on-line sales. As well this paper analyzes domestic laws supporting and/or regulating these services. The efficient provision of internet health services requires comprehensive laws on individual privacy protection, prevention and handling of medical accidents, an electronic prescription form for internet diagnosis, electronic signing, payment for medical expenses, qualifications for internet medical practitioners. Additional laws are required to establish internet pharmacies and internet health goods stores. These new laws can be prepared either separately or through revision of existing laws governing medical practice, pharmacies, and public health promotion. However, as the legal control by the government on cyber processes and entities has a fairly minimal effect, consumers should be encouraged to improve their own capacity for wisely using internet health services and health-service providers should be encouraged to promote voluntary supervision and control of their own services and practices.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
• /
• v.21 no.5
• /
• pp.84-89
• /
• 2021

Medical tests are very important part of the health monitoring process. It is performed for various reasons like diagnosing diseases, determining medications effectiveness, etc. Due to that, patients should be able to read and understand the available online tests and results in order to take proper decisions regarding their health condition. In fact, people are varying in their educational level and health backgrounds that make providing such information in an easily readable format by the majority of people considered as a challenge in the health domain since ever. This paper describes the MTReadable corpus which constructed for evaluating the readability of online medical tests. It covered 32 basic periodic check-up tests with over 36k words. These tests information are annotated and labelled based on three readability levels which are easy, neutral and difficult by three non-specialists native Arabic speakers. This paper contributes to enriching the Arabic health research community with an investigation of the level of readability of online medical tests and to be a baseline for further complex health online reports and information.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.15-28
• /
• 2007

Objectives: In this paper, the survey on internet usage patterns of health consumers was conducted and analyzed in order to determine internet health information assessment criteria for providing correct consumer health information on web-sites. Methods: By using a survey questionnaire with 16 questions on general information and 20 questions on internet health information, data were collected from September 16 to 25, 2005 from 476 participants through an internet web site, http://www.hp.go.kr. Frequency analysis, t-test, and multiple regression were used in order to analyze the difference in assessment criteria, factors influencing assessment criteria, factors influencing user satisfaction, etc. Results: General characteristics of the study population were: the persons over age 40 were the smallest age group; women were accounted for 74.2%; and the persons with average income were the largest income group; and the persons with average health status were the largest health group. Most widely used health information were: exercise, disease, and diet, in order. There was significant difference(p=.001) in importance of assessment criteria between the persons in medical institutions and the persons not in medical institutions. There was no significant difference in other assessment criteria. We also found that contents of websites and easy to use were more important factors than elucidation of information providers and information sources including speciality of information in quality assessment criteria of internet health information. Discussion and Conclusion: Results of this paper were compared with the previous studies from the literatures. Contrary to the previous studies in the literature, there was significant difference in importance of assessment criteria between the persons in medical institutions and the persons not in medical institutions. In order to apply the study results to develop health contents for consumer, there is a need for further upgrade the proposed assessment criteria based on expert opinion.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.51 no.3
• /
• pp.140-147
• /
• 2018

Objectives: Environmental pollution is a negative consequence of the development process, and many countries are grappling with this phenomenon. As a developing country, Iran is not exempt from this rule, and Iran pays huge expenditures for the consequences of pollution. The aim of this study was to analyze the long- and short-run impact of air pollution, along with other health indicators, on private and public health expenditures. Methods: This study was an applied and developmental study. Autoregressive distributed lag estimating models were used for the period of 1972 to 2014. In order to determine the co-integration between health expenditures and the infant mortality rate, fertility rate, per capita income, and pollution, we used the Wald test in Microfit version 4.1. We then used Eviews version 8 to evaluate the stationarity of the variables and to estimate the long- and short-run relationships. Results: Long-run air pollution had a positive and significant effect on health expenditures, so that a 1.00% increase in the index of carbon dioxide led to an increase of 3.32% and 1.16% in public and private health expenditures, respectively. Air pollution also had a greater impact on health expenditures in the long term than in the short term. Conclusions: The findings of this study indicate that among the factors affecting health expenditures, environmental quality and contaminants played the most important role. Therefore, in order to reduce the financial burden of health expenditures in Iran, it is essential to reduce air pollution by enacting and implementing laws that protect the environment.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.352-359
• /
• 2018

Background: The purpose of this study is to propose an analysis of trends and characteristics of high-cost patients who take over 40% of total national health insurance medical expenses. Methods: It has been analyzed the tendency of high-cost patients by open data based on the medical history information of 1 million people among national health insurance subscriber from 2002 to 2015. To conduct detailed study of characteristics of high-cost patients, multiple regression has been performed by sex, age, residence, main provider, and admission status based on the top 5% group. Results: The amount of medical expenses and the number of high-cost patients have gradually increased in decades. The number of high-cost patients for Korean won (KRW) 5,000,000 category has increased by 7.6 times, KRW 10,000,000 category has increased by 14.1 times in comparing of year 2002 and 2015. Top 5% medical expenses have increased by 4.6 times. In consideration of the characteristics of patients, the incidence of high medical expenses has been higher in female patients than male ones, the older patients than in the younger. Patients residence in Gyeonsang or Jeonla province have had a high incidence of medical expenses than other area. The disease including dementia, cerebral infarction, and cerebrovascular disease for high-cost patients has been also increased. Conclusion: The major increase factor for high medical expenses is the aging of population. The elderly population receiving inpatient care residing in the province that increases high medical costs have to management. There is an urgent need to develop a mechanism for predicting and managing the cost of high-cost medical expenses for patients who have a heavy financial burden.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
• /
• v.10 no.12
• /
• pp.1403-1410
• /
• 2015

The purpose of this study is to provide ways to utilize and create valuable medical information utilizing Medical Big Data created by field in hospital information system. The results of this study first creates new medical information of Medical Information system through medical big data analysis and integration of created data of PACS linked with many kinds of testing equipment and medical image equipment along with medical treatment information. Medical information created in this way produces various health information for treatment and prevention of disease and infectious disease. Second, it creates profit statistics information in various ways by analyzing medical big data accumulated through integration of billings and receipt, admission breakdown of patients. Profit statistics information created in this way produces various administration information to be utilized in profit anaysis and operation of medical institution. Likewise, data integration of personal health history, medical information of public institutions, medical information created in hospital information system produces valuable medical health information utilizing medical data.