• Health Policy and Management
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.397-414
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• 2013

There have been numerous attempts at finding factors associated with profitability among hospitals in the Republic of Korea. Factors that have been shown to be related to hospital profitability have not yet been systematically reviewed. The purpose of this study was to compile and summarize published works investigating the factors associated with hospital profitability in the Republic of Korea. We searched Research Information Sharing Service, Korea studies Information Service System, Database Periodical Information Academic, Korean Medical Database, KoreaMed, and Google Scholar from 1980 to November 2013. In addition, we manually searched reference lists from eligible studies. Review of 20 peer-reviewed articles revealed that very few of the variables employed in the eligible studies exerted consistent association with profitability, with the exception of personal cost (i.e., employee salaries). Future studies should take our findings into consideration before conducting research on hospital profitability.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.175-180
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• 2015

It is important to maintain information system (IS) following the business and institutional change. Even if successfully developed information systems, we cannot gain the benefit from the systems without the proactive maintenance activities. However, the importance of IS maintenance has not been considered as much as the system development, and we don't have any specific performance management structure. The objective of this study is to identify the relationship between IS maintenance activities and utilization. For empirical test of the hypothesis model, the sample data is collected from public information system sites. Results from multiple regression analysis reveal that proactive maintenance activities including IS maintenance cost increase, improving functionality, and enhancing ease of use have a causal effect on the IS utilization.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.305-329
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• 1999

Financial ratio indicators of the 46 sample hospitals provided by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, together with the survey data responded by the 57 sample hospitals, were analysed to identify the characteristics of the red-figured hospitals' financial structure, financial operational efficiency and management decision-making behavior, The financial characteristics identified through the analysis include high dependency to liabilities, high salary expenses and overhead costs, low profitability of the unduly large amount of fixed assets, and low managerial efficieny of inventory. The hospitals, in face of the IMF economic impasse, took the necessary decision-making and counter measures to cut down salary expenses, to increase the number of patient and medical revenue, and to reduce investment to fixed assets. Based on these findings this study suggested that the hospitals should take more active cost containment measures, financial structural reorganization, and developoment of the strategies that can contribute to increase of the number of patient and medical revenue and that do not. require much capital funds.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.1-32
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• 1992

The Canadian experience-universal government health insurance administeredby the ten provinces and two territories with some fiscal and policy variations-suggests the possibility of more effectve and efficient health care delivery system. The central purpose of the Canadian health in surance was to reduce and hopefully eliminate financial barriers to medical care. In this it succeeded. But it also produced varous kinds of unexpected side-effects on cost and quality. The Federal and Provincial Governments of Canada continue to exert theri efforts to ameliorate these problems. The lesson from Canada is that the health care revenue should be raised at the national level and managed at the regional level, and the regional healthcare financing organization has to take over the functions of the public health center. These alternatives is expected to make the Korean health care delivery system more efective and efficient, and to achieve health for all. This paper also discussed the policy agenda for implementing such alternatives in Korea.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.86-97
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• 2019

Over the past 30 years, significant developments have been made in hyperspectral imaging (HSI) technologies that can provide end users with rich spectral, spatial, and temporal information. Owing to the advances in miniaturization, cost reduction, real-time processing, and analytical methods, HSI technologies have a wide range of applications from remote-sensing to healthcare, military, and the environment. In this study, we focus on the latest trends of HSI technologies, analytical methods, and their applications. In particular, improved machine learning techniques, such as deep learning, allows the full use of HSI technologies in classification, clustering, and spectral mixture algorithms. Finally, we describe the status of HSI technology development for skin diagnostics.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.221-228
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• 2021

Recent improvements on the quality, fidelity and availability of biometric data have led to effective human physical activity detection (HPAD) in real time which adds significant value to applications such as human behavior identification, healthcare monitoring, and user authentication. Current approaches usually use machine-learning techniques for human physical activity recognition based on the data collected from wearable accelerometer sensor from a single wearable smart device on the user. However, collecting data from a single wearable smart device may not provide the complete user activity data as it is usually attached to only single part of the user's body. In addition, in case of the absence of the single sensor, then no data can be collected. Hence, in this paper, a continuous HPAD will be presented to effectively perform user activity detection with mobile service infrastructure using multiple wearable smart devices, namely smartphone and smartwatch placed in various locations on user's body for more accurate HPAD. A case study on a comprehensive dataset of classified human physical activities with our HAPD approach shows substantial improvement in HPAD accuracy.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2023

Recently, the digital healthcare technologies including non-invasive diagnostics based on Internet of Things (IOT) are getting attention. Human exhaled breath contains a variety of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can provide information of malfunctions of the body and presence of a specific disease. Detection of VOCs in exhaled breath using gas sensors are easy to use, safe, and cost-effective. However, accurate diagnosis of diseases is challenging because changes in concentration of VOCs are extremely small and lots of body factors directly or indirectly influence to the conditions. To overcome the limitations, highly selective nanosensors and artificial intelligent electronic nose (E-nose) systems have been mainly researched in recent decades. This review provides brief reviews of the recent studies for diabetes and lung cancer diagnosis using nanosensors and E-nose systems.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.188-195
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• 2022

Although issuing change orders is a common practice in the construction phase of any project, non-structural utility subcontractors are struggling and seek to find a way to reduce change orders. Therefore, this paper presents the analysis results on change orders to cultivate possible suggestions and solutions on how to reduce or minimize change orders in mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) works. Change orders in non-structural utility works are analyzed based on six categories such as rerouting and change of location, changes in weight, rejected design by Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, District Structural Engineer, or the Structural Engineer of Record, unforeseen conditions, changed equipment, and owner-initiated change. The analysis findings showed that rerouting and changing location is the most significant cause, followed by unforeseen conditions. The results not only contribute to the existing body of knowledge on change order research area, but also help MEP contractors reduce the time and cost of change orders.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.16-30
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• 2023

The elderly population is increasing owing to a low fertility rate and an aging population. In addition, life expectancy is increasing, and the advancement of medicine has increased the importance of health to most people. Therefore, government and companies are developing and supporting smart healthcare, which is a health-related product or industry, and providing related services. Moreover, with the development of the Internet, many people are managing their health through online searches. The most convenient way to achieve such management is by consuming nutritional supplements or seasonal foods to prevent a nutrient deficiency. However, before implementing such methods, knowing the nutrient status of the individual is difficult, and even if a test method is developed, the cost of the test will be a burden. To solve this problem, we developed a questionnaire related to nutrient classification twice, based upon which an adaptive algorithm was designed. This algorithm was designed as a machine learning based algorithm for nutrient classification and its accuracy was much better than the other machine learning algorithm.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.359-365
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• 2017

Background: Computed tomography (CT) is one of the most efficient diagnostic methods for stroke patients. The number of CT scanners in South Korea, however, is higher than in other countries, and may cause the overuse of this tool in healthcare. We aim to study the relationship between using CT and various patient and hospital characteristics among patients with cerebral infarction. Methods: We analyzed nationwide health insurance claims data for patients due to cerebral infarction during the second half of 2013 for up to 3 months. We performed multilevel analysis, including both inpatient and hospital-level variables, to determine how factors affect CT spending and utilization. Results: The data used in our study consisted of 17,046 hospitalizations at 583 hospitals. Inpatients who visited more than one hospital had higher CT utilization numbers and cost (number: ${\geq}3$: ${\beta}$ hospitals, 2.27; p < 0.05; 2 hospitals: ${\beta}$, 0.70; p < 0.05; cost: ${\geq}3$ hospitals: ${\beta}$, 251,108; p < 0.05; 2 hospitals: ${\beta}$, 77,299; p < 0.05). People who visited a general hospital had higher numbers and cost of CT utilization than people who visited a smaller hospital. Conclusion: Increased sharing of records and improved continuity of care between hospitals are needed to help curb the overuse of CT.