• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.254-260
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• 2014

Background: The purpose of this study is to assume appropriate outpatient consultation time for each clinical department on the basis of measured outpatient consultation time and satisfaction of outpatient. Methods: We surveyed the feeling and satisfactory outpatient consultation time, satisfaction, revisiting intention and recommendation to others to 1,105 patients of single general hospital in Gyeonggi-do and measured their real outpatient consultation time from October 28 to November 27 in 2013. On the basis of satisfaction, we estimated appropriate outpatient consultation time through area under the receiver operating characteristic curve in logistic regression model. Results: Feeling outpatient consultation time was 5.1 minutess, satisfactory outpatient consultation time which was suggested by patient was 6.3 minutes, and real outpatient consultation time was 4.2 minutes. Department which had longest real outpatient consultation time was infection (7 minutes) and department which had longest satisfactory outpatient consultation time was neurology (9.4 minutes). From the univariate and the multiple linear regression analysis, real outpatient consultation time was longer in pulmonology patient, new patient and afternoon patient, satisfactory outpatient consultation time was longer in infection, neurology, neuropsychiatry, neurosurgery, and rehabilitation patient. Appropriate real outpatient consultation time was suggested as 5.6 minutes which differentiated high and low satisfied patient group. However, we could not assume appropriate outpatient consultation time for each clinical department because the number of patient who had bad satisfaction was too low. Conclusion: To improve patient's satisfaction, we hope outpatient reservation system is operated as each patient's outpatient consultation time is at least 5.6 minutes.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.16-30
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• 2004

Background: Although the number of cancer patients increase, the resources for cancer management are not increased. If the outpatient chemotherapy administration room is operated, the shift of patients from inpatient 10 outpatient is occurred. So the capacities for chemotherapy increased and the shifted rooms were occupied with new non-chemotherapy patients. The income of the hospital increased. The purpose of this study was to assess usefulness and cost-effectiveness of the outpatient-chemotherapy adminstration model. Method: There are six beds, two chairs and two nurses and one personnel in the outpatient chemotherapy room. The satisfaction study by patients/family and doctors and the cost analysis over 12 months, by comparing costs of chemotherapy administration at outpatient chemotherapy room with inpatient at ward and inpatient-nonchemotherapy at ward were done. Results: The 97.1 percent of patients/family and the 94.4 percent of doctor who involved chemotherapy were satisfied with outpatient chemotherapy administration. The 91.7% of doctors said there were no differences in treatment outcome between outpatient and inpatient chemotherapy administration. The average number of patients in outpatient chemotherapy room increased from 10.7 to 15.4 but in inpatient from 19.4 to 18.3. The average number of inpatient chemotherapy were not changed related to increase of the average number of outpatient chemotherapy. The profit between outpatient chemotherapy and inpatient chemotherapy administration was 45,344,710 won and the profit between outpatient chemotherapy and non chemotherapy treatment was -185,294,614 won. Conclusion: The outpatient chemotherapy administration model is good for patients/family, doctors and hospital partially. But the hypothesis described above was not correct. The process of cancer patients treatment were from diagnosis and treatment to first administration of chemotherapy. So the shift from inpatient to outpatient was not occurred. In economic aspect, the profit between outpatient chemotherapy and non chemotherapy treatment was in the red. As the level of health care fees was so low, the hospitals hesitate operating the room of outpatient chemotherapy. It is necessary to raise the level of health case fees for outpatient chemotherapy administration.

• Journal of Korean Academic Society of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2012

Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of the outpatient clinics in a hospital, using DEA. Methods: Data were collected using an activity-based costing system, medical information system, and annual reports of customer satisfaction management team of a general hospital in a city. The input variables were the number of doctors, the number of nurses, and the number of staffs. The output variables were the number of treatment times, the number of outpatient clinic patients, the total profits from outpatient clinic, the patient's satisfaction score, and the number of re-visit appointments. EMS Window version 3.1 was used to measure the efficiency score and benchmarking analysis. Results: The average efficiency score of 24 outpatient clinics was about 82.01%. Thirteen outpatient clinics had 100% efficiency score among them. The lowest efficiency score was 57.56%. Conclusion: According to these results, we found that, generally, outpatient clinics were operated very efficiently. However, some outpatient clinics had low efficiency and they needed specialized outcome improvement strategies. To increase the efficiency of inefficient outpatient clinics, we will recommend using results of DEA, as a benchmark point of the most efficient outpatient clinics.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.21-34
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• 2003

Patient revisit to used hospital is a key factor in determining a health care organization's competitive advantage and survival. This article examines the relationship between customer's satisfaction and his/her revisit associated with three different methods which are the Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detection(CHAID) for segmenting the outpatient group, logistic regression and neural networks for addressing the outpatient's revisit. The main findings indicate that the important factors on outpatient's revisit are physician's kindness, nurse's skill, overall level of satisfaction, hospital reputation, recommendation, level of diagnoses and outpatient's age. Among these ones, physician's kindness is the most important factor as guidelines for decision of their revisit. The decision maker of hospital should select the strategy containing the variable amount of the level of revisit and size of outpatient's group under the constraint on the hospital's time, budget and manpower given. Finally, this study shows that neural networks, as non-parametric technique, appear to more correctly predict revisit than does logistic regression as a parametric estimation technique.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.64-74
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• 2014

This study attempts to evaluate the interior space of outpatient department of general hospital in aspects of nurses. The subjects are 97 nurses who work in outpatient department of H general hospital, Busan. Evaluating items are ones related to space layout, furniture, interior climate, color and finishes of outpatient department. Also, evaluating spaces are waiting area, doctor's room, treatment room, nurse station, and resting and dressing area for nurses in outpatient department. The results are ; 1) The space layout type of outpatient area in general hospital which each department consists of waiting area, doctors offices, treatment room and etc. was evaluated positively by nurses. 2) The waiting area and doctor's room was evaluated relatively positive, the treatment room was more negatively than these two rooms. But nurse related spaces such as nurse station and resting and dressing room were evaluated relatively negative. 3) In aspects of interior elements, furniture, and color and finishes were rated to be relatively positive. However, air conditions were rated negatively. 4) The finishes and dressing area in treatment room were rated relatively low. This would be a basic data for planning the outpatient area of general hospital.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.196-202
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• 2018

Purpose: Treatment of chronic constipation and fecal impaction is usually outpatient and requires high or frequent doses of laxatives. However, there are children who fail outpatient treatments, sometimes repeatedly, and are ultimately hospitalized. We sought to compare the characteristics of the children who failed outpatient treatment and needed inpatient treatment vs those who achieved success with outpatient treatment, in an effort to identify attributes that might be associated with a higher likelihood towards hospitalization. Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we reviewed the medical records of all patients aged 0 to 21 years, with chronic functional constipation and fecal impaction seen in the pediatric gastroenterology clinic over a period of 2 years. Results: Total of 188 patients met inclusion criteria. While 69.2% were successfully treated outpatient (referred to as the outpatient group), 30.9% failed outpatient treatment and were hospitalized (referred to as the inpatient group). The characteristics of the inpatient group including age at onset of $3.6{\pm}3.6years$ (p=0.02); black ethnicity (odds ratio [OR] 4.31, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 2.04-9.09); p<0.001); prematurity (OR 2.39, 95% CI 1.09-5.26; p=0.02]; developmental delay (OR 2.20, 95% CI 1.12-4.33; p=0.02); overflow incontinence (OR 2.26, 95% CI 1.12-4.53, p=0.02); picky eating habits (OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.00-4.08; p=0.04); number of ROME III criteria met: median 4, interquartile range 3-5 (p=0.04) and $13{\pm}13.7$ constipation related prior encounters (p=0.001), were significantly different from the outpatient group. Conclusion: Identification of these characteristics may be helpful in anticipating challenges and potential barriers to effective outpatient treatment.

• 한국사회복지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.461-492
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• 2004

This study examined the effects of gender, parental support and treatment type on the treatment outcome of adolescent substance abusers. Outcome variable was the successful graduation (or drop) from an Intensive Adolescent Outpatient Program. Adolescents with their parents' support were treated in one of three treatment models (2-weeks Inpatient plus 6 week Intensive Croup-Oriented Outpatient, 8-weeks Intensive Croup-Oriented Outpatient, and 8-weeks Individual-Family Therapy) within a private hospital-affiliated treatment center by managed care practice allowing their own choice (non-random natural assignments). Several hypotheses were tested for main effects by the Log-Linear Analyses for a multi-dimensional contingency table with 440 adolescents (284 boys and 156 girls treated during 1992-l997) from middle-class families with private health insurances. The following results were found. Odds of graduating versus dropping out of the treatment program among : (1) girls were 1.7 times higher than those among boys; (2) adolescents with two-parent were 2.2 times higher than those among adolescents with one-parent ; (3) adolescents with Inpatient plus Outpatient was 1.7 times higher than that of those with Outpatient; (4) adolescents with Individual-Family Therapy was 2.3 times higher than that of those with Outpatient Model. There was no statistically significant outcome difference between the Individual-Family Therapy and the Inpatient plus Outpatient. Implications from the results were discussed. Suggestions were made to improve the treatment components in the areas of gender sensitivity, securing more parental support, alternatives for separation from peer group and integrating new peer groups, and flexibility for the unique needs of individual family. Also, some research questions for future studies were suggested.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.247-255
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• 2017

Background: South Korea has experienced problems with excessive pharmaceutical expenditures. In 2010, the South Korean government introduced an outpatient prescription incentive program to effectively manage pharmaceutical expenditures. Therefore, we examined the relationship between the outpatient prescription incentive program and pharmaceutical expenditures. Methods: We used data from the Korean National Health Insurance claims database, which included medical claims filed for 22,732 clinics from 2011-2014 to evaluate associated pharmaceutical expenditures. We performed multiple regression analysis and Poisson regression analysis using generalized estimating equation models to examine the associations between outpatient prescription incentives and the outcome variables. Results: The data used in this study consisted of 123,392 cases from 22,372 clinics (average 5.4 periods follow-up). Clinics that had received outpatient prescription incentives in the last period had better cost saving and Outpatient Prescribing Costliness Index (OPCI) (received: proportion of cost saving, ${\beta}=6.8179$; p-value < 0.0001; OPCI, ${\beta}=-0.0227$; p-value < 0.0001; reference = non-received). Moreover, these clinics had higher risk in the provision of outpatient prescription incentive (relative risk, 2.772; 95% confidence interval, 2.720 to 2.824). The associations were higher in clinics that had separate prescribing and dispensing programs, or had professional staff. Conclusion: The introduction of an outpatient prescription incentive program for clinics effectively managed problems with rapid increases of pharmaceutical expenditures in South Korea. However, the pharmaceutical expenditures still increased in spite of the positive impact of the outpatient prescription incentive program. Therefore, healthcare professionals and health policy makers should develop more effective alternatives (i.e., for clinics without separate prescribing and dispensing programs) based on our results.

• The Journal of Korea Assosiation for Disability and Oral Health
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2019

There are increasing number of patients having dental treatment under outpatient general anesthesia. There were researches that studied patients treated under outpatient general anesthesia in Chonbuk National University Dental hospital between 2005~2013. However, there has been an absence of research since 2013. Therefore, the aim of this research is to study cases regarding outpatient general anesthesia visiting Chonbuk National University hospital between 2014~2017 and analyze the trends of these patients. The medical records of 409 cases from January, 2014 to December, 2017 were reviewed. From the patients' charts, data on sex, residence, visiting dates, disability status, and types and number of treatments was collected and investigated. The number of cases has increased from 86 in 2014 to 140 in 2017. Among 409 cases, 275 cases(67.2%) had disabilities, with mental disabilities consisting most of the disabilities. 192 cases were aged under 20 years old mostly with no disabilities, 142 cases were 20~39 years old mostly with mental disabilities, and 75 cases were 40 years old or more mostly with physical disabilities. The conservative treatment was performed most frequently in both disabled and non-disabled patient groups. There was an increasing trend in the number of patients treated under outpatient general anesthesia, and more than half were disabled patients. In order to meet this demand, Chonbuk National University Dental Hospital increased the number of general anesthesia pracrice. To follow this trends, the implementation of safe outpatient general anesthesia system and cooperation among teams is needed to improve the quality of treatments.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.83-92
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• 2013

Purpose: This study was to compare job stress and job satisfaction between ward nurses and outpatient nurses, and to identify the correlation between job stress and job satisfaction. Methods: The subjects of this study were 200 ward nurses and 85 outpatient nurses in G and I University Hospital in Incheon. The data were collected in March 2010 and analyzed with t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient. Results: There was no significant difference in overall job stress between two groups, but slightly higher stress level for ward nurses. In sub-area of job stress, 'nursing duty' was primary for both groups. And in 'nursing duty' (t=2.05, p=.041), 'conflict with patients' (t=2.73, p= .007), and 'working environment' (t=3.37, p<.001) ward nurses showed significant higher level of stress than outpatient nurses. For job satisfaction, outpatient nurses showed higher level significantly (t=-2.98, p=.003). And both groups of nurses' job satisfaction was negatively correlated with job stress significantly (r=-.31, p<.001). Conclusion: It will be possible to reduce job stress and promote job satisfaction level for both groups of nurses by adding staffs, and specifically for ward nurses by improving facilities for relax and appropriate supply, and for outpatient nurses by managing interpersonal stress and reducing side tasks.