• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.186-190
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• 2013

The advances in electronic medical records (EMRs) and bioinformatics (BI) represent two significant trends in healthcare. The widespread adoption of EMR systems and the completion of the Human Genome Project developed the technologies for data acquisition, analysis, and visualization in two different domains. The massive amount of data from both clinical and biology domains is expected to provide personalized, preventive, and predictive healthcare services in the near future. The integrated use of EMR and BI data needs to consider four key informatics areas: data modeling, analytics, standardization, and privacy. Bioclinical data warehouses integrating heterogeneous patient-related clinical or omics data should be considered. The representative standardization effort by the Clinical Bioinformatics Ontology (CBO) aims to provide uniquely identified concepts to include molecular pathology terminologies. Since individual genome data are easily used to predict current and future health status, different safeguards to ensure confidentiality should be considered. In this paper, we focused on the informatics aspects of integrating the EMR community and BI community by identifying opportunities, challenges, and approaches to provide the best possible care service for our patients and the population.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.568-583
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• 1994

In the changing social and economic conditions, reorientation of the health care system is a process of rearranging health care resources keeping in mind the appropriativeness, relevancy, and efficacy of health care programs. Also it has been recognized recently that the CHP program is in need of review for the same reasons, that is to say, the ease in which health care facilities are available, the high rate of coverage with insurance and the development of an effective transportation system. Therefore there is a social inclination to think that there are no remote areas and to question the roles of public health facilities, health centers, health sub centers and CHP posts. This paper was done to review problems and to propose new directions for the CHP system. The findings of this study are as follows ; 1) It is necessary that primary health care should be simplified into three parts, medical treatment, preventive care services and the organization of administration and logistics. Also each department should be supplemented with the appropriate professional personnel in order to develop a task oriented system. The reorientation of the CHP system should be managed in keeping with that of other public health care systems. Therefore it is necessary to look at the CHP system problems as one aspect of the reorientation process of public health care systems, and to work to find new ways to address these problems. 2) The location of the CHP post should be decided by the needs of the community in both the medical and preventive areas. If the people have a minimum need, the location of the CHP post should be altered and the existing roles of the CHP should be modified to allow for flexibility according to the community needs. 3) Use of the problem solving method in regular team meetings will prove to be as efficient as continuing education programs in improving job competancy. 4) The supervision of CHP's activities should be made by the same type professional personnel, that is, senior CHPs or charge nurses in the public health center at the county level. 5) The operational expensies of CHP post should be supported by the administrative department of the public health center and should create working conditions that will allow the CHP to concentrate on community health service programs. 6) The organizations for community participation, working committees, community health workers and a number of the local assembly, should be activated to provide for participation in finding solutions to health related problems in the com-munity.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.159-167
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• 2015

Objective : Recently many kinds of food therapies have sprung up to prevent or manage disease and to promote health. Seeing Korean history, the Korean medical doctors have been applying food therapy based on the thought that the dietary sources were as important as the medicine. Therefore, in this study, we designed a mobile edutainment game prototype with the goal of providing education about healthy food knowledge for users who belongs to different constitutional types. Materials and Method : We adopted the Sasang Constitutional Medicine as the medical background knowledge for our edutainment game design. Based on the user study, we developed the process of edutainment system which is composed of 'My game', 'My constitution', and 'My food'. Among the whole process, we developed a prototype for the core module - the 'My game' part. This prototype used a jumping game for mobile devices that is composed of training, level 1 and level 2 stages. Results : From the target user evaluation, it was proved that 1) in terms of the learning effect of healthy diet, the edutainment game we developed has a significant advantage over the conventional learning media. 2) after playing the edutainment game, the good and bad food identification accuracy based on picture and text format were increased by 44% and 42% respectively, and 3) target users perceived enjoyment while using this prototype, as well as showed positive intention to use this game as edutainment tool in the future. Conclusion : We designed and developed mobile edutainment game prototype to educate healthy food knowledge based on Sasang Constitutional Medicine. Through user evaluation, we proved that our prototype enhanced healthy food knowledge and that user accepted the prototype as a beneficial edutainment tool.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.163-192
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• 1983

In order to facilitate the Korean government's efforts in integrating family planning and maternal & child health at the primary health care level (or township level), the Soon Chun Hyang College of Medicine, with the financial and technical assistance of WHO, has under-taken a service research project. The project has employed a quasi-experimental study design introducing interventions tat provide crucial factors lacking in the ongoing government programs such as midwives and qualified referral physicians. The study is being conducted in three locations, one control area and two study areas. Before introducing trained Nurse/Midewives into the study areas, a baseline prevalence survey was undertaken from 15 July 1981 to 10 August 1981 in selelcted townships of Seosan County. In this sample survey of bath the study and control areas, 2,484 eligible women (97% reponse rate) were interviewed to obtain benchmark data on basic evaluation indicators related to family planning and maternal and child health. The salients results were summarized as follows.: 1. CONTACT RATES WITH HEALTH WORKERS; During the year preceding the survey, 12% of women were visited by government health workers. The primary reason for such visits by health workers was family planning (45% of the visits). About 34% of the women visited the health centers during the year. The primary reason for visiting health centers was immunizations for their children (45% of the visits). 3. FAMILY PLANNING USE RATE; The baseline data showed little difference between women in the study area and the control area on contraceptive use. Approximately 59% were currently using some methods. However, among those current users, almost half were practicing less effective methods of birth control such as rhythm or withdrawal. Among other methods, the tubectomy was the most popular (16%), while use of the IUD, oral pill and condom together reached only 14%. 3. PRENATAL CARE RATE; About 75% of the women reported no prenatal care for their last births (the youngest child of each women), Additionally, among women received prenatal care, over half had only one visit. 4. ATTENDANCE AT DELIVERY; Most of the women surveyed (over 80%) were attended by a non-medical person during their last delivery. These figures are somewhat comparable to the national figure of 84% for remote areas. 5. POSTNATAL CARE; The proportion of women reporting postnatal care was only 4.5%, and postnatal care was not received by the majority of women surveyed. 6. CHILD HEALTH CARE: In contrast to the low rate of maternity care for women themselves, most women reported obtaining immunization care for their children. About 75% of the women obtained Polio and/or DPT, 58% BCG, and 44% Measles vaccine for their children. However, in terms of illness care, while 35% of the women stated that their youngest child had been sick during the month preceding the survey, only 28% of these women took their child to the clinic for treatment. 7. COMPLICATIONS OF PREGNANCY AND DELIVERY AND ABNORMALITIES IN THE NEWBORN; Among all last deliveries, 18% of the women had pregnancy complications and 9% of the women had complications during delivery About 5% of the women reported abnormality in their most recent newborn. 8. REPRODUCTION EFFICIENCY; PERINATAL MORTALITY AND INFANT MORTALITY Based on data from the pregnancy history in this survey, reproduction efficiency was estimated. Out of the 11,154 pregnancies reported by all women surveyed, foetal loss was 21% (almost 16% were induced abortions) and infant deaths before reaching one year old were 3.1%. The reproduction efficiency was, therefore, reduced to 76%. In terms of perinatal and infant mortality rates, the former was 40.2 per 1,000 total births and the latter was 39.3 per 1,000 live births. Both rates described J shaped relationships with age of mothers and parity, and they were also correlated with birth interval and mother's education. In summary, this baseline survey data indicated a need for (1) improving contraceptive practices with more effective methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies and (2) providing better services for maternal and child care to protect wanted pregancies. In the Korean rural setting. the author believes that the latter is more important as the value of each child has increased as a result of the family planning campaign for the past two decades. This calls for more effective integration of Family Planning and MCH programmes to meet the needs of the family in each stage of the child bearing and rearing period with deploying more qualified personnel than the current government program personnel.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.43-54
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• 2008

Objectives: To identify the willingness of laypersons to perform the cardiopulmonary resuscitation(CPR), we analyzed their characteristics of socio-economic status and health-medical conditions associated with their willingness. Methods: Based on a health survey of Incheon Metropolitan City adults(N=5,114), tests of the differences between a group with willingness to perform CPR(=1,531) and a group with non-willingness to perform CPR(=3,583), and a logistic regression analysis of two groups were executed on socio-economic status-gender, age, marital stats, education level, jobs, and monthly household income-and health-medical conditions-CPR-related self-confidence, CPR education, chronic diseases, accident experience, EMS(emergency medical service) experience, and health status. Results: The rate of the willingness group was 29.9%, which was relatively lower than other developed countries. There were statistically significant differences between the willingness group with the non-willingness group on gender, age, jobs, CPR-related self-confidence, CPR education, and so on. Furthermore, Gender, age, students or armed forces among jobs, CPR-related self-confidence, and CPR education were statistically significant influential factors on the willingness to perform CPR. Conclusion: This study indicated that there was considerable variation in socio-economic status and health-medical conditions associated with willingness to perform CPR in Incheon. The CPR education aimed at increasing CPR-related self-confidence and correcting inaccurate perceptions of CPR attitudes would promote its use in response to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.30 no.1 s.56
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• pp.195-207
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• 1997

High price equipment is one of the major factors that increases national health expenditure in developed countries. Computerized Tomography(CT), one of the important high price equipment, has been concerns of health service researchers and policy makers in many countries. In Korea, CT, first introduced in 1984, have spreaded nationwide with rapid speed. Though the Committee for Approving Import of High Price Medical Equipment, founded in 1981, tried to regulate the introduction of high price medical equipment including CT, the effort resulted in failure. The exact situation of diffusion of the high price equipment, however, was not yet investigated. We aimed at the description of the diffusion of CT in Korea and analysis of influencing factors on hospitals for the adoption of CT. We mainly used the database of CT, made in 1996 by the National Federation of Medical Insurance for the purpose of insurance payment for CT. Also characteristics of hospitals were gathered from yearbooks published by the central and local governments and by the Korean Hospital Association. We calculated the cumulative number of the CT per one million population year by year. In turn, multiple linear logistic regression was done to find out the contributing factors for the adoption of CT by each hospital. In the logistic regression model, it is regarded as dependent factor whether a hospital retained CT or not in 1988 and 1993. The major categories of the independent factors were hospital characteristics, environmental factors and competitive conditions of hospitals at the period of the adoption. The results are as follows: Number of CT scanners per one million persons in Korea marked more higher level compared with those of most OECD countries. Major influencing factors on the adoption of CT scanners were hospital characteristics, such as hospital referral level, and competitive condition of hospitals, such as number of CT scanners per 10,000 persons in each district where the hospital was located. In Korea, CT diffused with rather rapid speed, comparable with those of the United States and Japan. The major factors contributing on the adoption of CT for hospitals were competitive condition and hospital characteristics rather than regional health care need for CT. In conclusion, a kind of regulating mechanism would be necessary for the prevention of the indiscreet adoption and inefficient use of high price equipment including CT.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.14-22
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• 2011

It is important for the strategy of service to provide the health information in the environment that the healthcare has been changed focusing on the preventive medicine. Recently, the various applications of u-healthcare have been presented by researchers. In this paper, we proposed the health information monitoring system using the context sensors based band. By wearing the proposed hand, the health status is gathered and vital signals are transmitted to the connected UMPC. It can be easily monitored according to the user locations in real time. To provide the health index according to the temperature, the air conditioning, the illumination, the humidity, and the ultraviolet rays, we use the various XML links extracted from RSS of the Korea Meteorological Administration. The health information is analyzed in terms of factors, such as, the asthma index, the stroke index, the skin disease index, the pulmonary disease index, the pollen concentration index, and the city high temperature index. Ultimately, this paper suggests empirical application to verify the adequacy and the validity with the proposed system. Accordingly, the satisfaction and the quality of services will be improved the healthcare.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.95-116
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• 2006

According to rapid increase of the population of senior citizens, there has been growing concern of Long-Tenn Care(LTC) services recently. Long-Tenn Care services, however, haven't been established systematically in Korea and the supply of LTC services is not sufficient despite the increase in the current social demand. This study aims to estimate the 'Willingness to Pay(WTP)' for LTC insurance which the government plans to introduce by means of social insurance, using Contingent Valuation Method(CYM). In addition, this study analyzes the factors affecting WTP for LTC insurance. An interview survey was carried out to derive WTP for LTC from 450 people who lived in Seoul aged 20 and above during the period from 16th to 21st of June 2003. Double-Bounded Dichotomous Choice Method was applied among several CVMs available to estimate both use value and no-use value of goods. There was pilot survey carried out prior to the main survey. The results show that the average monthly. WTP for LTC provided in home and residential setting is 18,192Won and 19,293Won, respectively. In the case of home care, WTP goes higher depending on reliability of LTC insurance policy and need for LTC insurance, as well as marital status, education and average monthly income. On the contrary, WTP is conversely affected by higher age and higher bids. In the case of institutional care, the factors affecting WTP are similar to those of home care, except age. This study followed NOAA's suggestions generally and the value derived through survey could be reliable. However, there can be the least bias in the process of survey because the CVM should be used under the supposed circumstances. Despite those limitations, it can be concluded that the amount the citizens are willing to pay for LTC is high enough to meet the costs needed to provide LTC.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.83-97
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• 1983

The present study is to provide information for the improvement of school health services through research on the current condition of its organization and practice in universities, colleges and junior colleges. The scope of this study is consisted of four components including health organizations/units, school health services, environmental sanitation and health education for the 30 universities, the 20 colleges and the 32 junior colleges in Korea. The major findings are summarized as follows: (1) Among the sampled schools, around 73% of them have the health service organization/unit. When we break down health service organization/unit into the types by the level of school, around 73% of the universities have formal organization called "health center" and 20.0% of them have an informal organization called "health room". For the colleges level, 30.0% of them have the "health center" and 40.0% of them have the "health room". The figure of junior colleges is a quite different from universities and colleges, 56.3% of junior colleges have the "health room" only but the other have no service organization at all. (2) It was found that only 22.0% of 82 schools have the health committee for the school health services. It might be necessary to have a kind of expert committee to establish an annual health service program, budget and health policy in the school. (3) Approximately 29% of those schools having formal health organizations/units appointed directors as a medical persons. 13.4% of the sampled schools are appointed doctors (including the dentists) at health service organization/unit, 9.8% are appointed pharmacist and 65.9% are appointed nurses. Therefore, the data imply that the school health services are depending mainly on nurses. (4) The major activities of school health services are covering primary medical care (84.1%), health counseling (72.0%), physical examination (68.3%), vaccination (58.5%), tuberculosis control (54.9%), parasite control (29.3%) and dental health case(9.8%). Also 69.5% of the schools have the program on the environmental sanitation and the health education program. (5) In regard to health budget taking account of 34 schools, approximately 92% of them have less than 5,000 won per students and only 8.8% of them have more 10,000 won per students. At the average health budget per students is 4089.8 won in universities, 1617.1 won in colleges and 475.0 won in junior colleges. (6) The students enjoy the benifit of medical insurance at 11.0% of 82 schools surveyed. They are all universities. (7) The study found that 56 universities, colleges and junior colleges provide the annual physical examination. Only 21.4% of them have provided it for all students and school employees. (8) 64.3% of the 56 schools surveyed keep a record of the regular physical examinations. Records must be utilized as the basic data for the evaluation of the student's health condition and so the individual student is encouraged to take care of his own health. (9) At the 59 schools which practice health counseling, the main concerns of the counsellees are venereal disease, tuberculosis and psychoneurosis. This shows the need to practice health education in the area of preventive medicine. (10) 69.5% of the 82 universities, colleges and junior colleges surveyed are concerned with supervision of the environmental sanitation in their school, but non-professionals are in charge at 70.1% of them. This indicates negligence in environmental sanitation. (11) 53.7% of the 82 schools responded that they have no special instructive measure for the students' health and 54.9% are found to be negative in the use of a health education method. This reveals a problem. They are not positive to the recognition of their function as the initiative organization for the students' health. (12) The supplementary education for the faculty of the school health services is executed only at 8.5% of all the schools surveyed.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.133-160
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• 1973

1. Introduction Community medicine with the concept of comprehensive medical care and an ideal medical care delivery system not only for an individual or family but for the whole community has emerged. In April 1970, the Presbyterian Medical Center started a hospital based community health service project in order to improve the health of the people in rural areas. Prior to commencing a comprehensive medical care system, a family survey was needed. The major objective of this survey was to obtain information concerning the people and their environment so as to be able to plan and implement a comprehensive medical care program in Soyang-Myun. 2. Survey Method An interview using a family record form was carried out for each household. This family record form was designed to get information about demography, family planning, environmental sanitation and vital statistics. Prior to beginning, the members of the survey team were trained in interviewing techniques for three days. The team consisted of a public health nurse, four nurse-aides, a sanitarian and four health extension workers who are working in our project, The survey was carried out during the period November 1971 to March 1972. 3. Project area 1) Population of Soyang-Myun was 11,668; male, 5,962 and female, 5,706. Sex ratio: 104.5. 2) Households : 1,858 3) Family size: The average household consisted of 6.3 persons. 4) Educational level of householder a. Illiterate 13% b. No schooling but able to read 10% c. Preschool children 19% d. Primary school 47% e. Middle school 7% f. High school 3% g. College or University 1% 5) Occupational distribution of householders a. Farmer 67% b. Laborer 13% c. Office worker 4% d. Merchant 4% e. Industrial worker 2% f. Unemployed 8% g. Miscellaneous 2% 6) Religious affiliation a. No religion 74% b. Buddhist 12% c. Protestant 10% d. Catholic 4% 4. Survey results Living Environment : a. Home ownership 95% b. Kinds of roofing Straw-thatched house 84% Tile-roofed house 10% Slate-roofed house 5% Other 1% c. Floor space Less than 6 pyong 10% 6-10 pyong 53% 11-15 pyong 24% 16-20 pyong 9% More than 20 pyong 4% d. Radio ownership 80% Environmental Sanitation : a. the source of drinking water public well 49% private well 30% drainage water 9% steam water 8% well pump 3% water distribution system 1% b. Distance between well and toilet more than 16meters 38% 6-10 meter 31% 11-15 meters 14% Less than 6 meters 17% c. The status of well management Bad 72% Fair 26% Good 2% d. General sanitary state of house Bad 37% Fair 51% Good 12% e. House drainage system had no house drainage. 77% Family Planning : a. 24% of the people have used contraceptives, but 12% ceased to use them. 76% have never used contraceptives. b. used methods 1oop 68% oral pill 16% vasectomy 4% condom 1% tubal ligation 1% two or more methods 10% Maternal Health : a. The number of conceptions of housewives under 50 years of age. 11 times 26% 6 times 11% 5 times 11% 4 times 9% b. The place of delivery own house 88% hospital 1% others 11% Treatment of general sickness : a. The place of treatment Soyang Health Center 31% Hospital (private or otherwise) 26% Pharmacy 14% Herb medicine 5% Private care 5% No treatment 12% Miscellaneous 7% b. Usual causes of diseases Unknown 46% Tuberculosis 29% Neuralgia 8% CVA 3% Bronchitis 3% Others 11%