• Title/Summary/Keyword: Medical agency

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Searching for a Social Solution for the Humidifier Disinfectant Disaster in Korea (가습기살균제 참사에 대한 사회적 해법의 모색)

  • Lee, Young Hee
    • Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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    • v.45 no.4
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    • pp.295-309
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    • 2019
  • Eight years have passed since the Korean government's medical agency officially reported that the fatal lung disease found in some hospitals in 2011 was caused by chemical disinfectants used in household humidifiers, marking the introduction of the humidifier disinfectant disaster. Over the past eight years, a medical-scientific approach has been taken by the Korean government in its efforts to solve the problems in terms of relief of and compensation for the potential victims. One of the unintended consequence of this approach has been the fact that the number of "official victims" recognized by the government is quite small compared to the total number of applicants who claim to be suffering from the humidifier disinfectant disaster. This is mainly due to the fact that the medical-scientific approach relies on excessively strict, rigid, and narrow medical-scientific criteria provided by medical experts for judging the degree of applicants' bodily damage from the use of humidifier disinfectants. As a result, this medical-scientific approach is becoming increasingly criticized by patients' organizations mainly composed of rejected applicants. Based on the analysis of the limits of this medical-scientific approach and after clarifying the social implications of the disaster from a sociological perspective, this paper proposes certain social approaches focused on participatory governance as a means of dealing with the current issue. Finally, the paper emphasizes that the act of taking social responses to the humidifier disinfectant disaster should also be considered a process of enlarging and deepening democracy in Korea.

A study on changes in physician behavior after enforcing pre-review system (사전심사제도 도입에 다른 의사의 진료행태 변화)

  • Kim Sera;Kim Jin Hee
    • Health Policy and Management
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    • v.14 no.4
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    • pp.88-113
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    • 2004
  • Starting from April, 2003, new pre-review system has been introduced and implemented to reduce unnecessary conflict with medical care organizations caused by current retrospective claim review system and to enhance efficiency of review system. The main purpose of pre-review system is to educate doctors to contrive adequacy of medical services. This research mainly focuses on effectiveness of pre-review system's influence on physicians' behavior changes. The analysis-participants were drawn from 1,449 clinics which implemented pre-review system, since April of 2003. The research results are as followings. First, the amount per claim has reduced by $\\3,154$, days of visit per claim by 0.1 day, and amount per visit by $\\412$, which were statistically significant. Second, anesthesiologists have decreased in three indicators the most, and the internists had least of changes. Third, the amount per claim and days of visit per claims has dropped significantly on physicians with less periods of practice and physicians with more ages. Fourth, the clinics without the expensive medical equipments, the city clinics showed significant decrease on days of visit per claim. Fifth, in intervention methods, the one-to-one education showed more significant decrease on amount per visit rather than information feedback by paper. In conclusion, the pre-review system have an impact on self-imposed physician behavioral change. The outcome of this research may be utilized for future extension implementation of pre-review system. Furthermore, it is showed that ability of transitions in medical services review system according to the future transition of payment system and context of health service policy.

Cancer Registration in India - Current Scenario and Future Perspectives

  • Chatterjee, Sharmila;Chattopadhyay, Amit;Senapati, Surendra Nath;Samanta, Dipti Rani;Elliott, Leslie;Loomis, Dana;Mery, Lesly;Panigrahi, Pinaki
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.17 no.8
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    • pp.3687-3696
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    • 2016
  • Cancer registration, an important component of cancer surveillance, is essential to a unified, scientific and public health approach to cancer prevention and control. India has one of the highest cancer incidence and mortality rates in the world. A good surveillance system in the form of cancer registries is important for planning and evaluating cancer-control activities. Cancer registration in India was initiated in 1964 and expanded since 1982, through initiation of the National Cancer Registry Program (NCRP) by the Indian Council of Medical Research. NCRP currently has twenty-six population based registries and seven hospital based registries. Yet, Indian cancer registries, mostly in urban areas, cover less than 15% of the population. Other potential concerns about some Indian registries include accuracy and detail of information on cancer diagnosis, and timeliness in updating the registry databases. It is also important that necessary data collection related quality assurance measures be undertaken rigorously by the registries to ensure reliable and valid information availability. This paper reviews the current status of cancer registration in India and discusses some of the important pitfalls and issues related to cancer registration. Cancer registration in India should be complemented with a nationwide effort to foster systematic investigations of cancer patterns and trends by states, regions and sub populations and allow a continuous cycle of measurement, communication and action.

open-japanese-mesh: assigning MeSH UIDs to Japanese medical terms via open Japanese-English glossaries

  • Yamada, Ryota;Tatieisi, Yuka
    • Genomics & Informatics
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.22.1-22.3
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    • 2020
  • The Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus is a controlled vocabulary for indexing biomedical documents that is used for document retrieval and other natural language processing purposes. However, although the oariginal English MeSH is freely available, its Japanese translation has a restricted license. We attempted to create an open alternative, and for this purpose we made a script for assigning MeSH UIDs to Japanese medical terms using Japanese-English glossaries. From the MeSpEn glossary and MEDUTX dictionary, we generated a 12,457-word Japanese-MeSH dictionary.

Blue light Exposure Control System Using Sensor Modules

  • Lim, Myung-Jae;Jung, Dong-Kun;Kim, Kyu-Dong;Kwon, Young-Man
    • International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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    • v.9 no.4
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    • pp.315-319
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    • 2021
  • Recent impact of 4th industrial revolution is increasing usage of IoT technology along with smartphones and tablet PC. However blue light emitted from electronic devices such as smartphones and tablet PC causes detrimental change to human bodies. As the controversy over the harmfulness of blue light became known through the media and various communities, related markets were formed, and various blocking films, software, and vision protection monitors were released. In this paper focuses on utilizing IoT technology to protect human organizations from blue light. It presents anti-blue light system which prevents excessive exposure to blue light through Arduino module such as ultrasound, piezo buzzer and blue light measurement module.

Systematic Review on the efficiency of prefilled syringe : To administer medication for cardiac arrest patient

  • Yoon, Byoung Gil;Park, Jung Hee;Kim, Young Seo
    • International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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    • v.10 no.4
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    • pp.23-244
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    • 2022
  • The Pulpose of this systematic review is aimed to establish the procedure of the injection with saftey and efficiency in the pre-hospital cardiac arrest patient performing the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), compared with traditional medication administration using Ampoule and medication administration with Prefilled Syringe. Databases were searched for CPR, heart arrest, resuscitation, Pre-filled Syringe, and Ampoule by the electronic data research including Pubmed, EMBASE and Cochran Library of Konyang University Library: 4 articles were selected by three co-authors using EndNote X20 and Covidence (Covidence.org) and were systematically reviewed. The Result of this study, the medication administration using Pre-fillled Syringe improves the safety of patients and Emergency medical workers by reducing the error in administration dose and administering the drug in safe than the medication adminisrtaion using Ampoule, also, contributes to the increment of survival rate of cardiac arrest and severe patients by decreasing the administration time that prevents the delay of medication administration.

Seroprevalence and B1 gene Phylogeny of Toxoplasma gondii of Dogs and Cats in Republic of Korea

  • Park, Yeojin;Noh, Jinhyeong;Seo, Hyun-Ji;Kim, Keun-Ho;Min, Subin;Yoo, Mi-Sun;Yun, Bo-Ram;Kim, Jong-Ho;Choi, Eun-Jin;Cheon, Doo-Sung;Hong, Sung-Jong;Yoon, Soon-Seek;Cho, Yun Sang
    • Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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    • v.58 no.3
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    • pp.257-265
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    • 2020
  • The outbreak of human toxoplasmosis can be attributed to ingestion of food contaminated with Toxoplasma gondii. Toxoplasmosis recently increased in domestic and stray dogs and cats. It prompted studies on the zoonotic infectious diseases transmitted via these animals. Sero- and antigen prevalences of T. gondii in dogs and cats were surveyed using ELISA and PCR, and B1 gene phylogeny was analyzed in this study. Toxoplasmosis antibodies were measured on sera of 403 stray cats, 947 stray dogs, 909 domestic cats, and 2,412 domestic dogs collected at nationwide regions, Korea from 2017 to 2019. In addition, whole blood, feces, and tissue samples were also collected from stray cats (1,392), stray dogs (686), domestic cats (3,040), and domestic dogs (1,974), and T. gondii-specific B1 gene PCR was performed. Antibody prevalence of stray cats, stray dogs, domestic cats, and domestic dogs were 14.1%, 5.6%, 2.3%, and 0.04%, respectively. Antigen prevalence of these animals was 0.5%, 0.2%, 0.1%, and 0.4%, respectively. Stray cats revealed the highest infection rate of toxoplasmosis, followed by stray dogs, domestic cats, and domestic dogs. B1 gene positives were 5 of stray cats, and identified to high/moderate pathogenic Type I/III group. These findings enforce that preventive hygienic measure should be strengthened at One Health level in dogs and cats, domestic and stray, to minimize human toxoplasmosis infections.

Fundamental Idea and Actuality of the Medical Dispute Mediation Act (의료분쟁조정법의 기본이념과 현실)

  • Kim, Min-Joong
    • The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.43-83
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    • 2013
  • Medical treatment has great potential for conflict. Even the best-trained doctors can commit medical malpractice that result in continuing physical or mental disabilities or even death. Medical conflicts have been increasing over years. The medical conflicts between patient and medical professionals that result from medical professionals' mistakes are often fueled by a violation on the pretext of the injuries form medical malpractice and can lead to litigation. The litigation usually cost a lot of money and time. The extension of the litigation period as well as expensive cost and lack of medical knowledge placing a great burden on patients. Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) is more efficient than litigation. In 1988, the medical dispute mediation system has been introduces as the Act on Remedy for Damage from Medical Accident and Medical Dispute Mediation by Korean Medical Association came into effect after 23 years of enactment efforts. Medical Dispute Mediation Act(hereinafter referred to as the "MDMA") has finally entered into force from 8 April 2012. The purpose of the MDMA is to promptly and fairly redress injuries caused by medical malpractice and create a stable environment for medical services of public health or medical professionals by providing for matters regarding the mediation and arbitration of medical disputes(MDMA ${\S}1$). In an effort to secure the fair, speedy and inexpensive resolution of every malpractice case, the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency(hereinafter referred to as the "K-MEDI") was established. Following the MDMA, the K-MEDI shall endeavor to ensure the medical dispute mediation or arbitration proceedings are conducted in a prompt, fair, and efficient manner, and patients and medical professionals shall attend proceedings in good faith with mutual trust and understanding when they participate in medical dispute mediation or arbitration proceedings.

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Potential Dioxin and Furan Sources from Hospital Solid Waste Streams : A Pilot Study

  • Lee, Byeong-Kyu;Fraso, Rafael-Moure;M
    • Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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    • v.11 no.E
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    • pp.13-21
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    • 1995
  • This Pilot study identifies potential dioxin and furan sources and medical plastic wastes produced from hospital solid waste streams. In this study, air emissions of dioxins and furans from sources in the U.S., which were estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), were summarized. Potential loading routes of dioxins and furans to the U.S.-Canada Great Lakes region have also been identified in trcent surveys. In addition, medical and hospital solid wastes produced in typical large city hospitals were characterized as important potential sources of dioxins and furans. Plastic contents in medical Plastics Characterization Survey (MMPCS), plastics composition data were obtained from a survey of five Massachusetts Hospitals and Medical Centers. By identifying plastic wastes as a percentage of total hospital wastes, we were able to use data from a preliminary study that analyzed the waste stream of 16 major New York City hospitals (NYCMWS) characterizing the plastic content of the wasters. This study determined the types of plastic wastes included in each medical waste stream (regulated medical waste or non regulated medical waste) and it discussed the potential for recyclibility of hospital plastic wastes. The combination of the NYCMWS and the MMPCS surveys provides for the first overview of the size of the recycling task of hospital plastic wastes and the potential of dioxin elimination if dioxin generating plastics were to be eliminated from hospital use.

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