• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.280-291
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• 2021

Background: Based on the fact that the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency is a public institution established by social demands for medical disputes, this study reviews the publicness of public organization and discusses its policy implications. Methods: Through Moore's strategic triangle, which consists of legitimacy and support, public value and operational capacity, the process of creating public value is examined. For the analysis, case studies were conducted using related literature data from 2012, when the agency was established, to the present. Results: As a result of the analysis, first, the related law examined in the operational capability has been revised dozens of times, but the revised law has its own contradictions and limitations. The human resource system is also being improved, but there is a problem with the fairness and reliability of the arbitration process, especially due to the limitations of the appraiser system. Second, in terms of legitimacy and support, a regional gap occurred despite efforts to improve accessibility through the expansion of the organization. And the arbitration agency failed to reconcile conflicts caused by stakeholders' perception of each other as a trade-off relationship. Third, the public value result shows that, despite many explicit (statistical) achievements, citizens' use of the past dispute resolution means (litigation) has not decreased. Likewise, the perception of value makers (citizens) is important for creating public value as an invisible result, but it has not yet been formally investigated, so the performance can not be recognized. Conclusion: While the organization's efforts for continuous change and improvement are encouraging, it is not perceived as a better means of resolving disputes and improving quality of services. Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider the institutional design centered on value creators.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.30-38
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• 2017

Background: This study aims to analyze the behavioral changes of healthcare providers and influencing factors after the reviewer unification of auto insurance medical benefit claims by an independent review agency. Methods: The comparison data were collected from the second half of 2013 and the same period of 2014. The key indicators are the number of admission days, the number of outpatient visits, inpatient ratio, inpatient medical expenses, and outpatient medical expenses. Results: Four indicators (number of admission days, number of outpatient visits, inpatient ratio, and outpatient medical expenses) showed statistically significant drops, while one indicator (inpatient medical expenses) showed no significant change. Conclusion: The reviewer unification of auto insurance medical benefit claims by an independent review agency showed significant reduction in cost and patient days.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.111-125
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• 2015

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to analyze the current cases of oriental medical injury relief data from Korea Consumer Agency (KCA), and to report the current change of oriental medical disputes pattern. Methods: Oriental medical injury relief cases processed by KCA from January 2010 to February 2015 were collected and analyzed. Results: 149 Oriental medical injury relief cases from KCA were analyzed for the study. The highest number that had been relieved was 43 in 2014. In monthly status, 18 case in September was The highest. According to the record, the bigger city had the bigger amount of relief cases which was 53(Seoul), 43(Gyeng-gi), 11(Busan) and so on. In age categories, 30s had the highest number of injury relief cases. The injury relief cases of package program had been rapidly increasing since 2013. Cancellation was the dominant claims cause of package program and consumer required the refund of prepayment. Breast augmentation was the majority treatment type of injury relief cases of package program. Average prepayment of package program was \3,166,085. Conclusions: This study finded that the major cause of oriental medical dispute was changed from side effect of clinical treatment to patient's satisfaction of medical service.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.569-573
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• 2023

We utilized terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) to measure the thickness and electrical properties of nickel-chromium (Ni-Cr) films. This technique not only aligns well with traditional methods, such as haze-meter and transmission-densitometer measurements, but it also reveals the electrical properties and thickness of films down to a few tens of nanometers. The complex conductivity of the Ni-Cr thin films was extracted using the Tinkham formula. The experimental values closely aligned with the Drude model, indicating the reliability of our Ni-Cr film's electrical and optical constants. The thickness of Ni-Cr was estimated using the complex conductivity. These findings emphasize the potential of THz-TDS in quality control of metallic nanofilms, pointing toward an efficient and nondestructive test (NDT) for such analyses.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.501-506
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• 2015

Biting midges belonging to the genus Culicoides (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) were collected by Mosquito $Magnet^{(R)}$ and black light traps at 5 sites on Jeju-do, Republic of Korea (Korea), from May-November 2013 to determine species diversity and seasonal distribution. A total of 4,267 specimens were collected, of which 99.9% were female. The most common species was Culicoides tainanus (91.8%), followed by C. lungchiensis (7.2%) and C. punctatus (0.6%), while the remaining 4 species accounted for <0.5% of all Culicoides spp. that were collected. High numbers of C. tainanus were collected in May, followed by decreasing numbers through August, and then increasing numbers through November when surveillance was terminated. Peak numbers of C. lungchiensis were collected during September, with low numbers collected from May-August and October-November. The presence of C. lungchiensis in Korea was confirmed by morphological and molecular analyses.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.35-42
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• 2018

Postmortem interval (PMI) is very important in the crime scene investigation. However, it is very difficult to estimate of the interval since death after a decomposition. Recently, there have been various studies on the postmortem interval since a decomposition. In particular, the total body score (TBS) and accumulated degree days (ADD) used to estimate the postmortem interval after a decomposition. This study was conducted with the aim of applying the TBS and ADD to estimate the postmortem interval in real forensic caseworks. In first murder case, TBS was 12 and ADD value was 132, respectively. An estimated time of PMI was around 23:00 on June 21, and the suspect's statement was 01:20 on June 22. Our estimated interval since death and the suspect's statement for the PMI differ by only 2 hours and 20 minutes. In second forensic case, TBS was 3 and ADD value was 55, respectively, an estimated time of PMI was around 02:26 on September 23. The suspect's statement was 10:30 on September 23. Our estimated time and the suspect's statement for the PMI differ by 8 hours. In these cases, we were able to have confirmed the feasibility of TBS and ADD on the real forensic cases. Overall, our finding suggested that the quantitative method could be used to produce PMI estimates that are accurate to within days or even hours.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.415-423
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• 2022

Economic evaluations in the healthcare are used to assess economic efficiency of pharmaceuticals and medical interventions such as diagnoses and medical procedures. This study introduces the main concepts of economic evaluation across its key steps: planning, outcome and cost calculation, modeling, cost-effectiveness results, uncertainty analysis, and decision-making. When planning an economic evaluation, we determine the study population, intervention, comparators, perspectives, time horizon, discount rates, and type of economic evaluation. In healthcare economic evaluations, outcomes include changes in mortality, the survival rate, life years, and quality-adjusted life years, while costs include medical, non-medical, and productivity costs. Model-based economic evaluations, including decision tree and Markov models, are mainly used to calculate the total costs and total effects. In cost-effectiveness or costutility analyses, cost-effectiveness is evaluated using the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, which is the additional cost per one additional unit of effectiveness gained by an intervention compared with a comparator. All outcomes have uncertainties owing to limited evidence, diverse methodologies, and unexplained variation. Thus, researchers should review these uncertainties and confirm their robustness. We hope to contribute to the establishment and dissemination of economic evaluation methodologies that reflect Korean clinical and research environment and ultimately improve the rationality of healthcare policies.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.295-304
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• 2013

Purpose: To identify work stress and job satisfaction of the emergency medical technician (EMT) and to contribute to the improvement of emergency care under the current emergency medical law. Methods: The data were collected by questionnaire from the total 849 EMTs (635 National emergency management agency (119) workers and 214 hospital workers) throughout the whole country from January 5, to March 5, 2012. Each level of indicator calculated under 100-point-scale was compared by t-test and ANOVA. Factors affecting stress and satisfaction were analyzed by Multiple Linear Regression Analysis (${\alpha}$=.05). Results: Mean level of job stress was markedly higher among 119 workers (76.9) than those in the hospital (56.6) (p<.001). Mean level of job satisfaction was higher among 119 workers (63.2) than those in the hospital (60.2) (p<.001). Conclusion: To diminish work stress and to increase job satisfaction, efforts to support the pride and to improve working condition considering the situations of the agency and to offer more education chance to keep and strengthen the specialty are needed.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.248-249
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• 2019

• The Journal of Health Technology Assessment
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.88-94
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• 2018

This review aims to provide implications for relevant domestic policies and researches from Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), a reinforcement model for primary care and its evaluations in the United States. As chronic diseases became dominant, changes in the health care delivery system in which primary care is central was required. The United States initiated primary care-reinforcing policies based on the PCMH following the increased demand for evidence-based health care policies. The current activities of the United States such as sharing research tools used to evaluate primary care interventions and circulating evaluation findings provide examples to Korea. Systematic evaluations for primary care interventions are required and appropriate methods using various types of data to reflect the real-world settings should be prepared. It is necessary to conduct policy assessment studies of public interests considering regional context. Support for the researches to make and advance from the existing environment must be examined.