• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.63-72
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• 2016

Nowadays, many Korean healthcare organizations are provide healthcare services to foreigners and some of them are operating overseas healthcare facilities or trying to operate them. Chinese healthcare market is regarded as the most promising one. In this article, I discussed the success factors for global healthcare services and made some suggestions for the successful implementation of FDI in healthcare services, especially for the Chinese healthcare services market.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.9 no.7
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• pp.233-240
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to suggest plans to enhance client satisfaction through improving the quality of hospital administration services. For accomplishing the purpose, we conducted empirical research with classifying hospital administration services into administrative staff service, medical staff service, facility service, and institutional service. Based on the results of this study, suggestions were made as follows for improving the quality of hospital administration services. First, in administrative staff service, detailed explanations should be provided about the items of medical bills, and patients' waiting time should be reduced through fast processing and smooth cooperation among departments. Second, in medical staff service, the process of medical service should be simplified for the accurate observance of appointment schedules, and the time to start outpatient service and the time to complete the discharge process should be earlier than now. Third, in facility service, convenient facilities and resting places should be prepared, parking facilities should be expanded, and menus should be improved for clients. Fourth, in institutional service, detailed medical service costs contents should be disclosed and plans should be made for the efficiency of services.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.129-146
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• 2009

Background and Objectives: The purpose of the study was to explore the attitude of workers toward a system of collaborative hospital practice between western and traditional Korean medicine, to identify factors influencing this attitude, and discuss the reasons socioeconomic groups' differences. Method: The data were collected with a questionnaire for this study from 14 April 2009 to 1 May 2009. Data were analyzed mainly via non-parametric statistics and logistic regressions utilising SPSS 17.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) to determine the workers' attitude about the hospital system and to predict factors contributing to positive attitudes. Results: A total of 1,260 workers working for large factories in Gwangju Metropolitan City. Findings confirmed that more than 40% of the workers show interest in the system and about 44% of the workers also express positive attitudes. Factors found to influence the workers' response included marital status, income level, health status, experience in complementary medicine services, the number of health care facilities' visit. Conclusions: The prospects to establish the system of collaborative hospital practice as reflected by the workers' view about the Korean health care service delivery system. Their attitudes toward the system differed among socioeconomic groups. Government and health care providers should identify the socioeconomic subgroups' demands and opinions in order to find and develop measures of integrating western and traditional Korean medicine in health care facilities.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.107-114
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• 2016

Background: Over the last few decades, because hospitals in South Korea also have undergone dramatic changes, Korean hospitals traditionally have provided specialized health care services in the health care market. Inner Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (IHI) measures hospital caseloads based on patient proportions, independent of patient volumes. However, IHI that rely solely on patient proportions might be problematic for larger hospitals that provide a high number of diagnosis categories, as the patient proportions in each category are naturally relatively smaller in such hospitals. Therefore, recently developed novel measure, category medical specialization (CMS) is based on patient volumes as well as patient proportions. Methods: We examine the distribution of hospital specialization score by hospital size and investigate association between each hospital specialization and length of stay per case and hospital cost per case using Korean National Health Insurance Service-cohort sample data from 2002 to 2013. Results: Our results show that IHI show a decreasing trend according to the number of beds and hospital type but CMS show an increasing trend according to the number of beds and hospital type. Further, inpatients admitted at hospitals with higher IHI and CMS had a shorter length of stay per case (IHI: B=-0.104, p<0.0001; CMS: B=-0.044, p=0.001) and inpatients admitted at hospitals with higher IHI and CMS had a shorter hospital cost per case (IHI: B=-0.110, p=0.002; CMS: B=-0.118, p=<0.0001). Conclusion: This study may help hospital policymakers and hospital administrators to understand the effects of hospital specialization strategy on hospital performance under recent changes in the Korean health care environment.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.1-14
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• 1999

The purpose of this study was to estimate the magnitude of patient's actual cost-sharing for hospital services in the National Health Insurance which has been estimated with only a few hospitals or limited number of patients. Also we aimed at analysis of factors influencing the magnitude. Sources of analyzed data were two databases. 1997 medical benefits record of the National Federation of Medical Insurance and 1997 Statistics for Hospital Management from the Korea Institute of Health Services Management(KIHM). We merged two databases and related records for 224 hospitals. based on the identification details of each hospital. The average percent of patients' cost-sharing was 51.7% of total hospital revenues from the insurance. with 40.3% of revenue in inpatient and 67.4% in outpatient. respectively. The contributing hospital factors to the magnitude of cost-sharing were size of hospitals. teaching status. location. number of employed physicians. etc. Larger and university hospital. urban location. and with more physicians were positively correlated with higher level of cost-sharing. Additionally, the higher the expenses of inpatient's treatment was, the higher the size of patient's cost-sharing was. These findings suggest that present level of patients' cost-sharing is quitely high and it is urgent to reduce the patient's cost-sharing to the reasonable level. It would be necessary to extend the coverage of insurance benefits and to develop policies focusing on larger hospitals and inpatient services.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.31-52
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• 2011

The cutthroat competition of the market for the medical services caused changes and developments of hospital management from the traditional provider-oriented management to a consumer-oriented management toward the customer. And the popularization of on-line community through the growth and spread of internet technology is developed into an important exploration activity to provide various medical information to patient(or customer) who wishes a high-quality medical services. This is an on-line Word-of-Mouth(WOM). It is a kind of information exploration that is performed by customers before choosing the hospital with off-line word-of-mouth. In this study, we develop our research model to verify the causal relationships among on/off-line WOM, key determinants of hospital choice and the customer's will to make use of the hospitals, and total effect of these variables. We adopt a component-based PSL method for an empirical analysis of the patients experienced dermatology or obstetrics gynecology. Finally, we understand the characteristics of the various medical services and draw new and significant strategic previews.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.39-46
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• 2023

Purpose: Korean medical services are not balanced across regions and social classes. To prevent mortality gaps, Korea must distribute its medical resources more efficiently. Patient factors affecting emergency room visits serve as basic data for determining best practices for public healthcare distribution. Methods: The data included 18 473 visits by 14 949 de-identified patients who visited a public emergency room over one year. The dependent variable was the number of emergency room visits. A Poisson regression was conducted with the independent variables, comprising sociodemographic, socioeconomic, and spatial accessibility factors and patient characteristics. Results: Older men with higher Korean Triage and Acuity Scale scores visited more frequently. Greater patient-hospital distance decreased visits; however, the presence of a hospital within 1 km of a patient's residence did not affect the number of visits. The use of 119 services was negatively correlated with the number of visits. Visits increased with more medical benefits. Conclusions: Patient age, distance to hospital, use of 119 services, and medical benefits should be considered when planning or managing public hospitals in Korea.

• Perspectives in Nursing Science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.55-65
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• 2009

The Korean government introduced Home Care Services System to cut medical cost and make efficient use of limited medical resources because of increasing chronic diseases and the growing population of the elderly. The Korean government established measures to control the use of insurance services by restricting the number of nurse's visits to patient's home and by asking the patients to shoulder the transportation fee of nurses during the visit. Factors such as oversupply of hospital facilities, low price of home care services, high insurance coverage for hospital services and increased nuclear family set up resulted in the limited use of home care nursing services. The introduction of long-term care insurance in 2007 brought the decrease in the number of home care agencies and these agencies are facing a crisis today. The increase in chronic diseases and growing population of the elderly recently resulted in the need to control the high medical cost. Home care services for early discharge patients and chronic-severe disease patients will contribute in the reduction of medical cost at the same time improves the quality of patient's life. To catch up with the demands of the nation, accessibility to home care services should be improved and policies such as the expansion of home care services insurance coverage and promotion of establishing home care agencies should be considered.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.726-736
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• 2003

Introduction: This study was conducted to investigate patients' satisfaction with hospital services at a university hospital in G city. Methods: The subjects of this study were 92 inpatients and data were collected during the period from March to April 2003. The research tool used was a 24-item scale(Cronbach' a= .768) on patients' satisfaction with two subcategories of services: 18 items on hospital human resources(a= .722) and 6 items on hospital environment(a= .700). Data were analyzed through $x^2$-test, t-test and ANOVA using SPSS/PC. Results: The level of patients' satisfaction was $38.4{\pm}3.77$ on hospital services $27.6{\pm}6.14$ on hospital human resources, and $10.8{\pm}2.39$ on hospital environment on the average. Satisfaction related to hospital human resources was higher in male subjects (t = 4.15, p = .003) and in those who stayed longer than 15 days (t= 4.404, p= .039) than the others, and also higher in those who replied that all items related to hospital facilities are satisfactory except the parking lot. Satisfaction related to hospital environment was significantly higher in more educated subjects(F = 2.945, p= .037) and in those who replied that all items related to hospital facilities are satisfactory or appropriate except the parking lot and admission procedure. Conclusions: Length of stay and the level of accessibility and appropriateness of hospital facilities were found to be factors that have significant effects on patients' satisfaction.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.121-130
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• 2002

As a hospital deals with people in their particular states, namely patients, computerization and automation in organization systems are very limited. Even though state-of-the-art medical systems such as the OCS, the HIS, the EMR, and the FACS are facilitating the computerization and informatization processes, they are for convenience and effectiveness. Ultimately, however, we should depend on specialists including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and medical engineers. Therefore, a hospital is a representative labor-intensive body. Like other similar organizations, hospitals require a lot of manpower. But they are quite different in that hospital people hold variety and complexity in their qualifications and licenses. In personnel management, a hospital is twice controlled owing to the special characteristics that human life is at stake. First, the quota of medical manpower should be obeyed lest the quality of medical services should be lowered, and their roles and interrelations are even regulated. Second, in spite of the peculiarity of hospitals, the duties of obligatory employment and social insurances should not be neglected like other companies. In order that each hospital can preserve the proper level of medical services, securing the appropriate level of medical personnel has to be regulated. However, as the personnel cost is one of the important indices of hospital management, too much regulation in manpower supply can lead to poor hospital management and, in the end, the drop of the quality of medical services. In sum, as far as hospital personnel is concerned, some autonomy ought to be given to each hospital so that it can control the quality of hospital services. In addition to this minimum regulation of personnel, certain incentive and reward systems like the graded nursing system need to be prepared.