• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.50-61
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• 2015

Advances in healthcare technology and rapid economic growth lead to the increased life expectancy and consequently the size of elderly population. Korea is one of the countries that are rapidly aging. Thus, it is particularly important to prepare for the aging society. Recently, the number of healthcare institutions for the elderly citizens has increased. The purpose of selecting a hospital for the elderly is, in general, maintenance of health rather than improvement of health receiving proper treatment. Unlike choosing a hospital for treatment, customers of a long term care hospital have a different set of factors to consider. Especially, when choosing a long term care hospital, the influence of patient's family is greater than the patient. This study examines the factors they consider for long term care hospital. A total of 198 questionnaires were collected from the families of actual patients of long term care hospitals. Twelve questionnaires were found to be non-usable because of missing and unsatisfactory responses. Consequently, 186 questionnaires were used for the analyses. Findings of this study are as follows. First, seven factors have been identified to consider when choosing a long term care hospital for the elderly. They include convenience of facilities, costs variety of facility programs, service hours, reputation, accessibility, quality of medical staff, medical facilities, and facility size. Second, This study measured both importance and satisfaction with these attributes and analyzed the difference between them. Satisfaction was lower than importance in the categories of convenience of facilities, costs, and programs, and accessibility. On the other hand, satisfaction was higher in terms of service hours, reputation, and quality of medical staff. Finally, the current study found positive impact of accessibility and quality of medical staff on reuse intention of a long term care hospital.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.32-54
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• 1997

The purpose of this study was to identify the reason for patients to choose a hospital. We divided the hospital into two types of hospitals : corporate hospitals and university hospitals. We inverstigated patients' satisfaction according to the image of hospitals. For this purpose, two corporate hospitals and two university hospitals were selected. Data were collected from the self-administered questionnaire for the patients admitted to these four hospitals in April 1996. 772 questionnaires were collected and 55 cases had no answer or insincere answers. So, we used 707 questionnaires for the analysis. Corporate hospitals had modern facilities. However, patients preferred university hospitals because of the reliability of medical staffs and easy accessibility. University hospitals had higher level of satisfaction of medical services, while the corporate hospital had higher level of satisfaction to the friendly atmosphere, and kindness of hospital staffs. When the patients come to hospitals again after discharge, they would consider medical services, hospital atmosphere, and kindness of medical staffs regardless of hospital types. In conclusion, the reasons for patients selecting university hospitals are reliability, history, and tradition of medical services. Instead,, the reasons for patients selecting corporate hospitals are modernization of hospital facilities.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.19-36
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to assess adequately equipped with convenience facilities for the disabled in 160 healthcare institutions in Jongno district, Seoul. Healthcare institutions were equipped an average of 3.7 facilities out of 10. General hospitals had an average of 5.0 facilities, which was higher than an average of 3.6 facilities for private clinics (p<0.05). Of 160 healthcare institutions, only 13 (8.1%) offered easy access to the outpatient setting from the entrance for wheelchair users, highlighting difficult wheelchair access within hospitals. To provide easy access to medical service for the disabled, more accessible designs need to be adopted as part of the effort to improve public facilities for the disabled. Also, universal designs could be applied for newly constructed roads, structures and transportation vehicles to maximize accessibility for the disabled. Increased accessibility for the disabled in the community will eventually increase the use of healthcare institutions.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.202-214
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• 2012

This paper discusses the problem of determining locations for public health-care facilities and allocating patients to the public facilities with the objective of minimizing the total construction cost. The public health-care facilities have two types of facilities: public hospitals and health centers. The public hospital provides both hospital services and homecare services, while the health center provides only homecare service. We present an integer programming formulation for the problem, and develop two types of heuristics, based on priority rules and approximate mathematical formulation. Results of a series of computational experiments on a number of problem instances show that the algorithms give good solutions in a reasonable computation time.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.173-189
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• 2023

This study aimed to determine foodservice and hygiene management statuses at welfare facilities catering to disabled persons by facility type to provide basic data for foodservice management guidelines. An online survey was distributed to workers at 1,984 welfare facilities for disabled persons in Korea, and 531 facilities responded, which represented a response rate of 26.8%. The survey requested general information about the facilities, facility users, meals, hygiene, and management. Statistical analyses were performed, and frequency analysis and the chi-square test were used to investigate responses by facility type. The survey results revealed that daycare centers were most common and accounted for 27.4% of responses. Residential facilities for the severely disabled and sheltered workshops accounted for 16.9% and 16.4%, respectively, and residential facilities by disability type accounted for 13.0%. The presence of dietitians at welfare facilities varied by facility type. Welfare centers for the disabled (94.7%) had the highest percentage of dietitians, followed by residential facilities for the severely disabled (87.8%). On the other hand, sheltered workshops and daycare centers for disabled persons had the lowest percentages of dietitians (10.3% and 4.1%, respectively). This study highlights the variations that exist in foodservice management across different welfare facilities for disabled persons and emphasizes the challenges faced by those responsible for managing foodservices and maintaining hygiene, particularly in large facilities with no dietitians. Therefore, we recommend tailored meal management guidelines be developed for each type of welfare facility for disabled persons.

• 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.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.97-106
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• 2010

Recently hospitals are trying to meet requests of patients by reflecting regular survey results of patients into hospital's management in order to increase patients' satisfaction and the rate of return visit. In this paper, degree of patients' satisfaction and the rate of return visit were analyzed using surveys of hospital selection factors and the characteristics of aesthetic plastic surgery. This analysis results can be used as data for setting up efficient management direction of aesthetic plastic surgery hospitals. In the main results, facilities and medical trust factor was the primary cause for aesthetic plastic surgery patients to select hospitals and the results showed that hospitals have to consider carefully not only aesthetic plastic surgery patients but also guardians such as parents or friends because patients are acquiring surgery information from them. The results also showed approachableness to hospitals was not important factor to select a hospital.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.123-144
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• 2009

Recently, a long strike by hospital labor union emerged as a serious social issue. During the Worldcup Games in June, 2002, labor strikes broke up at 'C', 'K' and other hospitals, and in 2007, 'Y' hospital suffered much from a strike. Such series of extreme labor disputes have awakened people of importance of a more stable labor-management relationship for the medical institutions responsible for people's health than any other business organization. The purpose of this study was to examine the labor-management disputes at 'Y' hospital in 2007 and 'C' and 'K' hospitals in 2002. The results of this study can be summarized as follows; First, requests of the labor union such as pay raise, reemployment of the irregular workers as regular employees and participation of the labor union in personnel affairs are the long-held or core issues suffered by the medical institutions. Such issues are not independent from each other but complicated with each other surrounding the pay raise. Accordingly, it is not easy to determine the genuine bone of issue for labor-management disputes. Second, the model type of disputes between labor and management at medical institutions may be strike. However, it is conceived that the type of disputes would be subject to change as the essential medical service area system began to be operated since 2008. Third, the common characteristic of the labor strike among the 3 sample hospitals was occupation of the hospital lobby for a sit-in strike to maximize the negative effects of strike. Article 42 (Prohibition of Violence) of Labor Union and Labor Relation Coordination Act prohibits occupation of production or other important business facilities. In addition, since Ministry of Labor interprets that the hospital lobby belongs to the important business facilities enumerated by Article 42 of the above act, occupation of the hospital lobby for a sit-in strike may be too controversial to be admitted as a fair act of labor dispute when its legitimacy should be judged. Fourth, the counter-measures taken by the hospitals against the strike were observance of the principle 'no labor no pay,' closure, legal action, accusation, claim for recovery of damage, provisional seizure, disciplinary punishment, etc., but the principle of 'no labor, no pay' was not applied in a fair manner by 'C' and 'K' hospitals. However, 'Y' hospital applied this principle thoroughly to the strike; the hospital conduced to correction of the wrong labor-management relationship by refusing inclusion in the labor collective agreement of a provision about payment of wage during the period of strike or labor union's request to that effect during a strike. In addition, 'Y' hospital took an effective measure to end the strike earlier by notifying the labor union of cancellation of the collective agreement and banning the unionists from entering the hospital.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.47-58
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• 2009

This study is to grasp selection factors and habits of information searching of customers of ophthalmic service and to verify the differences in them and to investigate how they affect in selecting medical institute by demographic sociological characters, selection factors by classification and habits of information searching, how many times they used and the type of medical treatment. The result of analysis of importance of selection factors of medical institute, it showed that doctors' career were evaluated high by classification and it showed in order of university hospital, hospital, clinic in facilities and equipment and in order of university hospital, clinic, hospital in distance transportation Analysis of importance of selection factors by sex distinction, it showed that doctors' career were high for both male and female and according to the result of analysis of selection factors by an age, doctors' career variable was measured high and it showed in order of facilities, equipment, distance and convenient transportation. The result of analysis by the form of medical treatment, doctors' career were measured high in all diseases. Facilities and equipment were measured high in case of a corrective operation of eyesight and distance transportation variable showed high in simple eye diseases. According to the result of analysis of habits of searching information by utility frequency, one's own experience in the past(direct visits) was the highest over all and it showed in order of introduction of other ophthalmic department in case of people who go to the institutes many times.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 2012

Success of any business solely is dependant on how to satisfy clients in healthcare-related industry. In the short history of Korea pet-care industry, there were not many guidelines on client satisfaction management of companion animal hospitals. The studies on many pet healthcare facilities were conducted based on their cost-benefits and the advantages of medical operation within special features of the traditional hospital management system. However the companion animal hospitals recently need to improve the service quality and client closed communication in keen competition on pet healthcare market. This study explores client satisfaction management could be the new issue of the veterinary hospital business. And it finally suggests of the critical factors affecting successful client satisfaction management of companion animal hospital based on the eight case studies.