• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.1-14
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• 2022

Purposes: This purpose of this study was to check how much the online word of mouth influences on customer's hospital selection according to Kano's model. Methodology: Kano classified the attributes that affect customer's satisfaction into attractive, one-dimensional, indifferent, must-be, and reverse attributes. Among them, attractive and one-dimensional attributes make up the largest portion in hospital selection. Based on this, the influence of positive or negative online reviews on the selection of hospitals was investigated. Differentiated service was selected as the attractive attributes, and a kind, sufficient explanation was selected as the one-dimensional attributes. Then a questionnaire was conducted how much the positive or negative online reviews influence on hospital selection, respectively. It was conducted from August 7 to September 7, 2021 for medical consumers in their 20s and older who have used medical services for the past 3 years, and the final 142 questionnaires were analyzed. All data was analyzed by chi-square and two-way ANOVA using SPSS ver 25.0. Findings: The results showed that, in one-dimensional attributes, the difference between positive and negative reviews was not statistically significant, but in attractive attributes, positive and negative reviews showed a statistically significant difference. It suggests that positive reviews on attractive attributes had a greater influence on hospital selection. In terms of hospital selection, when the experimental participants were exposed to the positive reviews, the hospital selection ratio did not differ by Kano's attributes, but to the negative reviews it differed. The hospital selection ratio, even after they were exposed to negative reviews, was higher in the attractive attributes than in the one-dimensional attributes. Practical Implication: This study confirmed that hospital selection is influenced differently depending on the Kano's attributes and the direction of the reviews, and suggests that marketers should respond differently to each Kano's attributes when they deal with online reviews of hospitals.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.263-278
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• 2011

As the competition among hospitals become intensified, hospital management is required to carry out more effective marketing and positioning of the hospital. Successful positioning of a hospital requires the knowledge about how the concrete attributes inherent in the medical service associated with the customer values that customers seek eventually in the medical service. Thus, it is required for hospital management to understand which hospital attributes should be emphasized in order to improve the customer values. The hierarchical structure of service attributes can provide valuable information about effective positioning and advertising. To obtain such knowledge, we employed the order analysis technique as an objective means-end chain method. Order analysis is useful for identifying the causal structure among attributes. Thus, we can examine the underlying causal relationship and eventually the vertical structure of hospital selection attributes. For this study, we conducted a survey to obtain 370 responses for the analysis. The result suggests that hospital management had better increase the scale of hospital, improve the services of health care providers, and modernize the hospital facilities and equipments so as to enhance customer values and eventually to lead them to recommend the hospital to others. Our findings would provide the valuable information for hospital management to develop the more effective hospital positioning and marketing strategies.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.40-52
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to identify medical consumers' hospital selection factors in response to the rapidly changing environment of medical industry. For that purpose this study classified consumers' hospital selection factors into three categories such that human factors including expertise, reliability, empathy; system factor including, convenience, differentiation, efficiency; and facility factor including tangibility, accessibility, and location, based on the previous studies and the results of a preliminary survey of the patients of a small private hospital. The nine factors were further divided into 23 more specific attributes. Then, an online survey was conducted to measure the perceptions of the 23 attributes by the medical consumers over the age of 20. The analysis of the survey data using Kano model and Timko model indicated that 14 of the 23 attributes were classified as attractive factors, eight attributes were or classified as, one-dimensional factors, and one attribute, doctors' educational background, was classified as indifference factor. Of the 14 attractive factors, "unique and differentiated services related to medical treatment" and "distance from home to hospital" had the highest customer satisfaction coefficients. Of the eight one-dimensional factors, "kind treatment," "providing adequate explanations," "accuracy of diagnosis," and "cleanness of facilities" had the highest customer satisfaction coefficients as well as the highest dissatisfaction coefficients. The findings indicate that these six attributes are the most basic and most impactful attributes that hospitals must manage strategically to improve their service quality and attract more medical consumers to their hospitals.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.18-36
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• 2024

This study delved into the complex nature of medical services as experience goods and trust services, investigating the profound impact of online word-of-mouth on medical consumers' decisions to visit hospitals. Considering the restrictive legal framework for medical advertising, consumers are increasingly dependent on unrestricted sources of information like online reviews. This research aimed to provide empirical evidence for the significant role online word-of-mouth plays in hospital selection. Utilizing data from Naver reviews, hospital choice factors were classified based on the Kano model, revealing the subtle yet significant influence that word-of-mouth has on consumers' hospital visit intentions beyond merely positive or negative messages. In particular, the study provided insights into how the categorized positive and negative information, along with the presence or absence of emotional expression, affects the efficacy of word-of-mouth. The experiment targeted medical consumers aged over 20 and, through analysis using the SPSS statistical program, yielded important findings. The direction of online word-of-mouth, the presence of emotional expression, and the interaction of Kano attributes all created significant differences in hospital visit intentions. Notably, emotional expression included in negative word-of-mouth concerning one-dimensional attributes markedly decreased visit intentions, whereas the absence of emotional expression in attractive attributes actually enhanced reliability and increased visit intentions. These findings offer critical implications for redefining strategies in medical marketing and online review management. The discoveries of this study underscore the importance of active engagement and strategic management of online reviews by medical service providers, urging careful consideration of the various elements of online word-of-mouth that influence medical consumers' hospital visit intentions.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.50-61
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• 2015

Advances in healthcare technology and rapid economic growth lead to the increased life expectancy and consequently the size of elderly population. Korea is one of the countries that are rapidly aging. Thus, it is particularly important to prepare for the aging society. Recently, the number of healthcare institutions for the elderly citizens has increased. The purpose of selecting a hospital for the elderly is, in general, maintenance of health rather than improvement of health receiving proper treatment. Unlike choosing a hospital for treatment, customers of a long term care hospital have a different set of factors to consider. Especially, when choosing a long term care hospital, the influence of patient's family is greater than the patient. This study examines the factors they consider for long term care hospital. A total of 198 questionnaires were collected from the families of actual patients of long term care hospitals. Twelve questionnaires were found to be non-usable because of missing and unsatisfactory responses. Consequently, 186 questionnaires were used for the analyses. Findings of this study are as follows. First, seven factors have been identified to consider when choosing a long term care hospital for the elderly. They include convenience of facilities, costs variety of facility programs, service hours, reputation, accessibility, quality of medical staff, medical facilities, and facility size. Second, This study measured both importance and satisfaction with these attributes and analyzed the difference between them. Satisfaction was lower than importance in the categories of convenience of facilities, costs, and programs, and accessibility. On the other hand, satisfaction was higher in terms of service hours, reputation, and quality of medical staff. Finally, the current study found positive impact of accessibility and quality of medical staff on reuse intention of a long term care hospital.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.353-378
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• 2012

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of selection attributes of convention center on participant's satisfaction. Specially, this study is focusing on the moderating effects of city image and city attractiveness. In the dimensions of convention center selection attributes, many factors affect participant satisfaction can be assumed that. They are categorized as seven factors; main facilities, subsidiary facilities, operations management, human services, board and lodging, accessibility, and peripheral conditions. The data was collected from 260 foreigners who visited the Shanghai convention center in China. 237 respondents were analyzed via intercept survey based on self-administered questionaries. The results of this study supported the proposed conceptual framework overall. The findings indicate that first, main facilities, subsidiary facilities, human services, accessibility, and peripheral conditions affected positively participant's satisfaction. Second, the high level city image and city attractiveness have moderating effect between some selection attributes of convention center and participant's satisfaction.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.22-34
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• 1995

Health care marketing can be defined as a process of developing, promoting and administering health care services for the benefits of hospitals as well as consumers. Researchers have reported that one of the significant attributes in the selection of hospital is a client's perceived image of the hospitals. Especially the image of nursing services was one of the important factors of the hospital image. The main purposes of the study were 1) to define the positioning about 5 hospitals' image of nursing services. 2) to define the effects of image attributes to the iamage of hospital nursing services. Eighteen hundred questionnaires were distributed to the parents of middle schools and high schools in Seoul. Among them, 1340 cases were returned but 849 cases were turned out to be useful data and used in final analysis. In data analysis, $SPSS\;/PC^+$ and PC-MDS programs were used for descriptive statistics, multiple regression, and drawing perceptual maps. The image of hospital nursing services was measured developed by the author through literature review and content validation. Reliability coefficients was found to be statistically appropriate level of confidence(Cronbach's Alpha=.8617). The results were as follows : 3) The perceptual map shows that hospital A, B and C,D,E were divided into five groups(See Fig. 1). That is, hospital A, and B are located in a close position and hopital C & E are located at opposite position between X-axis, Hospital D was located in the middle area of the hospital C and:E. In conclusion, this research visiblely depicted perceptual maps using MDS of the consumer's image about hospital nursing services. Since hopital nursing services were differentiated by the image attributes in consumer's perception, the results of the study can help hospital managers plan marketing strategy according to their strong points or weak points. Because the necessity of marketing in recent health care was importantly recognized, this research which is adopting posititioning concept will contribute to the consumers and hospital organizations.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.69-90
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• 2021

Purpose : This study explores unmet medical services within a region for patients admitted to a single medical institution in one region and was to analyze the importance and satisfaction of hospital selection attributes. Through this, we tried to solve the unmet medical needs of patients and provide useful basic data in terms of hospital management in the region. Methods : It were collected to a total of 250 questionnaires for patients admitted to the regional integrative medical hospital. However, 232 samples were used for the final analysis, excluding 18 copies not reported in good faith. For the analysis, first, demographic frequency analysis of inpatients and inpatients was performed, and second, characteristics of patients, including frequent disease receiving treatment, were analyzed. Next, descriptive statistics analysis was conducted on unmet medical service intentions. In terms of hospital selection attribute, the items of continuity maintenance (I quadrant), priority visibility (II quadrant), low priority (III quadrant), and excessive effort (IV quadrant) were derived using the IPA (importance-performance analysis) matrix technique. Results : The derived results were classified by item and area. In the priority administration area, it was the reputation and recognition of medical institutions and the service area of medical institutions. In the case of items, there were 6 items including the importance of surgery and medical expenses, and diet at hospitalization. 1) Conclusion : Thus a result of this study, resources are efficiently allocated to priority correction areas with high importance but low satisfaction and circulatory medical treatment is performed in the departments required by patients who use medical care and, various methods, such as preparing a policy to support medical expenses, should be sought.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.348-356
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• 1996

A survey of one hospital foodservice system in Seoul was undertaken and detailed in formation was collected from 538 patients. Patient satisfaction with the quality of hospital food and food-related service was evaluated by questionnaire survey. It was measured by assessing 24 variables. The effect of medical treatments, age, length of stay and appetite on patients' satisfaction satisfied with the food served, although the variety of food and seasoning of food received the lowest score. The highest rated items were attitude of personnel serving food, the portion size of cooked rice, and the cleanliness of dishes and tray. Younger patients were significantly less satisfied than were older patients. Female patients were significantly more satisfied nificantly more satisfied than were other patients. Medical treatments, age, length of stay of stay and appetite were found to be significantly correlated with patient satisfaction scores. Foodservice attributes for improvement were taste of meals, selection and variety of food and temperature of food.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.17-34
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• 2011

Recently, medical market has been changing not for the sake of treatment of the disease but for high quality of health. Therefore, South Korea medical tourism service needs to understand and improve for the differences perceptions of medical tourists and health professionals for customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to understand the structure of medical tourism market through theoretical consideration and to suggest the factors which need to be taken precedence for improvement of South Korea medical tourism service through analysis differences between consumers and suppliers. To analyze the difference of awareness, we reconstructed the questionnaires focussing on evaluation factors and articles about medical tourists selection attributes and health professionals way to invigoration through previous research and precedence study. After that, we also collected the data based on reconstructed questionnaires. After we compared each collected responses from medical tourists and health professionals, also analyzed the differences of awareness by applying Johari's Window to those differences. In conclusion, there is no relation between medical tourist and health professionals about th differences of awareness in functional quality and cost that is a direct effect to transaction in current medical tourism of South Korea. In contrast, there are differences of awareness between a process which support medical tourism and technical quality. Therefor, we expect to invigorate medical tourism by innovation of supportive process and technical quality.