• Health Policy and Management
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.315-346
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• 2012

The legal relationship between patient and physician is legally equal relationship. But, in times past, patients be compelled to sign an unequal contract, substantially. Because of the imbalance between supply and demand in the health care market. Today, the law of supply and demand in the health care market is running well. And as the cognition of citizens' rights grows, the relationship between patient and physician can also get a lot of changes. Patients have the right to know the information about medical care, and to decide whether or not to get treatment including invasions against their own bodies. In other words, Doctors have an obligation to explain to their patients. If doctors did not provide patients sufficient explanation or information, it violates the right of patients. This is a tort, or a breach of contract. To improve the remedy for violation of patient's right, patient is able to be protected by status as consumer. If patient is a kind of consumer in terms of medical consumption, he/she as consumer can enjoy supplementally the consumer's right. The patient as a consumer can exercise now a consumer's right as a constitutional right. In addition, with respect to consumer's rights, Framework Act on Consumers was enacted. This Act is based on constitutional provisions of Article 124 and the Act can be seen as a law that embodies consumer right because the provision of the constitutional law delegates specific contents. In the health care field, patients need to win recognition the statue of the consumer to hold the sovereignty of the consumer. In particular, if patients are consumers, they may be able to make good use of the quickly and efficiently collective dispute resolution and association lawsuit to rescue their damage, the Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) of Framework Act on Consumers.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.389-398
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• 2001

Objectives : To investigate the information searching behavior of health care consumers according to sociodemographic characteristics. Methods : A questionnaire survey was conducted of 1,507 persons who were selected through a multi-stage stratified area cluster sampling of the Republic of Korea, excluding the province of Jeiu-do. Personal were conducted through a door-to-door survey between 27 July and 10 August 1999. Results : 80.5% of respondents used more than one source of information and those $40\sim59$ years of age, female, a housewife or student and those who claimed a religion demonstrated more active information searching behavior. A personal informer was used significantly more in those $20\sim39$ years old, female, and those who claimed a religion. Clerical workers, those with post-secondary education and a monthly income greater than 2,000,000 won ($1500) were more actively used a public informer. Low socioeconomic status and older persons used an experimental informer when they chose a health care institution. Conclusion : Regardless of the sociodemographic characteristics, personal and experimental informers were the most useful source of information. Because appropriate information was not easy to obtain, the health care consumer was dependent upon word-of-mouth communication(personal informer) when using health care services.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.219-237
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• 1998

Economists have identified informed consumer choice as one element of a better-functioning health care market, and thus increased attention is directed to the role of information in the health care system. In this country, however, little work has been done for understanding consumers' search behavior in health care market. Based upon this observation, expectant mothers' information search for the choice of delivery care institution was investigated. In doing so, two hypotheses were proposed: 1) Those women who were more active in the search for information would make choice of a delivery care institution with more confidence and would feel greater subsequent satisfaction. 2) The activeness of expectant mothers in information search would depend upon their various personal characteristics, such as socio-economic status, obstetric conditions, and knowledge and attitudes in relation to delivery and health care. The data used for the analysis were collected through face-to-face interviews with those women who had childbirth during the period from January 1, 1996 to the date of interview in February 1998. The survey was conducted using prepared structured questionnaire in Seoul. The sample was drawn from each of arbitrarily defined four regions of Seoul, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast and Southwest, in proportion to the number of births reported in 1996 in each of them. The distribution of the interviewed women by educational level was made similar to that of mothers of new babies reported in 1996. The sample size was planned to be about 300, but ended up with 319. The results of analysis were generally consistent with the proposed hypotheses. Apparently, information increased expectant mothers' confidence in selecting a delivery care institution and subsequent satisfaction with the institution. Indication is that policy efforts should be strengthened to produce and disseminate relevant, comprehensible and credible information that can aid patient decision making. Also, attention should be directed to motivate patients to actively engage in information search from adequate sources.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.193-204
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• 1992

The purpose of this article is (1) to measure the attitudes of health care consumers towards medical service, the physicians' duty to provide information and patient self-determination options, (2) to discover the their related variables. The attitude of health care consumers towards medical service reveals statistically significant corelation with age and education. Among the statistically significant independent variables it is significantly related with age in the multiple regression analysis. The attitude of health care consumers towards the physicians' duty to provide information reveals statistically significant corelation with age, education and the attitude of health care consumers towards medical service. Among these independent variables it is significantly related with the attitude of health care consumers towards medical service in the multiple regression analysis. The attitude of health care consumers towards patients' self-determination options reveals statistically significant corelation with age, the attitude of health care consumers towards medical service and the attitude of health care consumers towards the physicians' duty to provide information. Among these independent variables it is significantly related with the attitude of health care consumers towards the physicians' duty to provide information in the multiple regression analysis.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.495-504
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• 2000

Objectives : To examine various dimensions of consumer ratings of health care service with factor analysis and to find which factors influence the overall quality of health care service. Methods : A cross-sectional study was conducted on outpatients of a general hospital located in Sungnam City. A self-administered questionnaire was used to assess the consumer's ratings of health care service received. The response rate was 92.8% with a total of 537 persons completing the questionnaire. Factor analysis was performed on 34 items evaluating the quality of health care service. Items were grouped into 5 dimensions as a result of factor analysis and the reliability and validity of influence on patient service assessment were evaluated for each dimension. Results : The 5 dimensions were as follows, 1) physician services, 2) non-physician services, 3) process 4) facilities, and 5) cleanliness A positive correlation with the quality of health care service was found for the dimensions of non-physician services and process, while no significant correlation was found for the dimensions of physician services, facilities, and cleanliness. Conclusions : The result of this study may provide basic information for the development of future self-administered questionnaires of consumer ratings and for the evaluation of quality improvement activities in hospital outpatient settings.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.71-110
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• 2013

As a patient has recently been recognized as not a passive object but a subject of medical services, various attempts are being made to strengthen the status of a patient. Medical communication which has been led by a doctor so far is being made with a focus on a patient due to sovereignty of a consumer and activation of medical information. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process to strengthen the status of a patient as a consumer of health care service through a patient association and consumer movement as medical information becomes public. As the patient centered medical service is creating a variety of health care service market using IT technologies, it has contributed to the improvement on asymmetry of medical information. As the expansion of IT fusion health care market is bringing the fundamental change into the traditional relationship between a doctor and a patient, the medical service market is being re-organized. A patient centered medical service such as expansion of mobile health care model led by a patient is being accelerated.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.21-37
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to examine internet agent of IT(Information Technology) in health care industry Since IT is essential for corporate strategy in service management, this section examines IT in health care service, especially from the view of 'Agent Technology' that has been recently issued. Intelligent agent is a new paradigm for developing software applications. More than this, agent-based computing has been hailed as 'the next significant break-through in software development' and 'the new revolution in software'. And health care service is a non-mechanic, human-based service. This paper reviewed what possible suggestions or advices can be made to the health care service. Since many health care services using internet have been attempted over the recent years, this study will hopefully be able to come up with good suggestions from many aspects. Thus, information inequality between producer(physician) and consumer(patient) in health care service will be decreased through the introduction of agent technology.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.212-218
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• 2022

This study aims to understand health care consumer's information searching behavior according to their presence of chronic diseases. For this purpose, 240 patients' data of university hospital located in Seoul were collected by surveys from 9 February to 11 February 2016. For statistical analysis, we used SPSS Ver. 26.0. The main results of this study are as follows: First, Chi-square test showed that chronic patients used expert information sources and experiential information sources more than those without chronic diseases. Second, chronic patients were found to search nutrition management, exercise management, and patient case. Lastly, in the case of hospital-related searches, patients with chronic diseases searched more waiting time and medical expenses than those without chronic diseases. The significance of this study is to provide basic data for efficient information provision and establishment of marketing strategies reflecting information needs of health care consumers.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.25 no.1 s.37
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• pp.53-63
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• 1992

There are increasing interest and need for information on health care consumer with the significance of hospital marketing and strategic planning being increasingly emphasized. This study was conducted to investigate the criteria for selection of medical facilities according to the characteristics of health care consumer by the types of medical services on a sample of 1,500 population aged 20 years and above. Major findings are as follows ; 1. When considering the criteria for selection of medical facilities into two factors, namely, quality or convenience factors, convenience factor was the major contributor for outpatient and dental services whereas it was quality factor for inpatient services. 2. Females and those residing in large cities selected medical facilities based on convenience factor in the outpatient services. In the case of inpatient service, persons who considered their present health status to be good and whose ages were 50 years old and above choose medical facilities based on quality factor. 3. Persons who considered medical facilities to be profit-making tended to choose medical facilities based on convenience factor for outpatient services. There were no differences in the cases of inpatient and dental services. 4. There was no significant difference on the criteria for selection of medical facilities according to the decision maker for selection or trust on medical facilities. On the use of health service information, selection of medical facilities was based on quality factor for those who made more use of the information in the cases of outpatient and dental services. 5. Analysis using the logistic regression model on the criteria for the selection of medical facilities with the characteristics of health care consumer as independent variables was performed. The selection of medical facilities was significantly related with residential area, sex, and use of information on medical facilities for outpatient services and with age, average monthly income, and perception of health status for inpatient services. For dental services significant association with residential area and use of information on medical facilities was seen. The results of this study, despite some limitations, can be used as baseline data for marketing and strategic planning of hospital management.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.138-156
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• 2010

Objective : The purpose of this study is 1) to understand the information-searching behavior of health care consumers ; 2) to examine the relationship between the information-searching behavior of health-care consumers and regulatory variables such as socioeconomic factors, characteristics of medical utilization, and perceived risks ; and 3) to determine the factors that affect consumer satisfaction, especially with respect to information-searching behavior. Method : The data for this study were collected from 838 respondents in five university hospital located in three areas?Seoul, Gyeonggi province, and Chungchong province. As the first step of the study, we conducted a preliminary survey from September 23?26, 2008. At the second step, we conducted a survey on the effect of information-searching behavior on those individuals who had visited. Furthermore, personal interviews were conducted through a face-to-face survey between September 30 and October 17, 2008. Results : The major research findings that were obtained from the study were as follows : First, the age, educational level, and residential district were associated with information source utilization. Second, the level of information searching effort and quality of service had a significant effect on consumer satisfaction. Conclusion : These results show that it is essential for marketers to have in-depth knowledge about the young and educated people who actively search for information and about those who are in the prime of their life and rely on word-of-mouth communication from personal and experi in-al informers. Therefore, marketers should develop different marketing strategies to meet the needs of such consumers.