• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.24-35
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• 2017

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the primary care quality of a public health center in a rural area using the Korean Primary Care Assessment Tool (KPCAT). It also examined some methodological issues in applying the KPCAT and interpreting its results. Methods: Seventy-nine patients who had visited their doctor more than four times responded to the KPCAT questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and a radar chart were used in analyzing data. Sign test was used to test the KPCAT score difference by don't know option scoring methods. Results: Median and interquartile range of the public health center's KPCAT scores were forty-five and sixteen points, respectively. Only the median of the first contact domain reached the expected value of seventy-five points. The proportions of those who scored under the expected value were under fifty percent in two of four comprehensiveness items, all of three coordinating function items, two of five personalized items and all of four family/community orientation items. There were some methodological issues including, how to score don't know option and make sure response scale consistency. Conclusions: There was much room to improve the primary care quality of the rural public health center. Especially, improvement is needed in the domain of coordinating function and family/community orientation. We also hope that methodological improvement of the KPCAT contributes to more valid and reliable primary care assessment.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.69-78
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• 2013

Objectives : Health cooperative movement is of increasing concern among medical consumers and professionals in Korea. Most health cooperative clinics provide Western Medicine and Korean Medicine(KM) to patients. This study aimed to evaluate the primary care level of health cooperative KM clinics and compare it with local KM clinics in Korea. Methods : Face to face survey was performed at the 3 health cooperative KM clinics and 5 local KM clinics with the Korean Primary Care Assessment Tool (KPCAT). The KPCAT consists of 5 domains (21 items): first contact (5), coordination function (3), comprehensiveness (4), family/community orientation (4), and personalized care (5). Subjects were patients or guardians who had visited KM clinics five times or more during the last 3 months. We compared primary care scores of each domain between health cooperative KM clinics and local KM clinics. Results : Data were collected from 200 respondents (100 patients from health cooperative KM clinics and 100 local KM clinics). Total average scores of the KPCAT for health cooperative clinics and local KM clinics were $81.1{\pm}12.0$ and $75.4{\pm}9.5$, respectively. Among primary care domains, personalized care was the highest ($89.2{\pm}12.0$, $89.6{\pm}8.4$, respectively), and comprehensiveness function was the lowest ($68.5{\pm}22.5$, $54.5{\pm}22.0$, respectively). Significant differences between two groups were noted in comprehensiveness function (68.5 vs. 54.5, P=0.000), family-community orientation (79.5 vs. 73.0, P=0.004), first contact(89.2 vs 84.0, p=0.001) and coordination function(74.0 vs 68.7, p=0.025). Conclusions : Based on the patients assessment, health cooperative KM clinics provide more primary care-oriented services than local KM clinics. This means that health cooperative clinic can be one of alternatives to strengthen the primary health care in Korea. Future researches are recommended to measure patients satisfaction and treatment effectiveness in the health cooperative clinics.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.16-25
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• 2019

Purpose:The healthcare system of South Korea is at the extreme of the dispersed system. Few regulations limit patients from directly visiting higher-level medical institutions for primary care sensitive conditions. As a result, similar to local clinics, general and tertiary teaching hospitals also provide diverse primary care services. Our study aimed to examine the general public's perceptions of their primary care performance. Methods: Face-to-face surveys were conducted with 1000 adults who were living in South Korea with the aid of a questionnaire that included the Korean Primary Care Assessment Tool (KPCAT). The KPCAT consists of five domains, which are the main indicators of primary care performance: first contact, comprehensiveness, coordination, personalized care, and family/community orientation. One-way analysis of variance and post hoc tests were used to compare the KPCAT scores across the three types of medical institutions. Results: Domain-wise analyses revealed two different patterns. With regard to first contact and its subdomains, the highest and lowest scores emerged for local clinics and tertiary teaching hospitals, respectively. However, the other four domain scores were significantly lower for local clinics than for the other two types of medical institutions. Conclusions: Local clinics were perceived to be medical institutions that are responsible for providing primary care. However, the general public perceived only one domain of their primary care to be superior to that of the other two types of medical institutions: first contact. National efforts should be taken to strengthen their other four domains of primary care by training their workforce and providing appropriate incentives.