• Journal of Drive and Control
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.71-76
• /
• 2015

The therapy of injecting a fixed amount of a prescribed drug for a predetermined time is an effective treatment in relieving pain during anticancer treatments. Due to recent medical technology development, cancer is currently classified as a disease that can be managed in the patient's lifetime. If patients were able to use a drug delivery system that was portable, sustainable and had an accurate flow control, they would be able to inject medication whenever they need. In this study we developed a piezoelectric micropump for a drug delivery system by designing a pump chamber, check valve and diaphragm. We also developed a driving circuit that consumes low power and to which we applied a variety of signals. We fabricated a portable drug delivery system with this piezoelectric micropump and driving circuit. In addition, through a performance test, we confirmed that the system can precisely control the drug flow rate.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.127-132
• /
• 1997

Recently there has been increased interest in the use of iontophoresis for the transdermal delivery of drugs, both ionic and nonionic. The use of iontophoresis has been rare over the years due to the lack of domestic supplies of the instrument and the expensive iontophoresis instrument made by foreign country. The purpose of this study was to design a commercially available iontophoresis system (WIT- 1 ). The efficacy of WT- 1 system was well defined. In clinical trial, procaine iontophoresis produced local anesthesia of significantly longer duration than swabbing and placebo groups. The 4% procaine iontophoresis using WIT-1 significant difference in anesthetic duration between WIT- 1 system and IontopherTM PM system. The result of this study suggest that WIT-1 system can be used for the transdermal delivery of drugs in various clinical conditions.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.32 no.6
• /
• pp.418-424
• /
• 2023

Natural killer (NK) cells play a crucial role in combating infections and tumors. However, their therapeutic application in solid tumors is hindered by challenges, such as limited lifespan, tumor penetration, and delivery precision. Our research introduces a novel ultrasonic actuation technique to navigate NK cells more effectively in the vascular system, particularly at vessel bifurcations where targeted delivery is most problematic. We use a hemispherical ultrasonic transducer array that generates phase-modulated traveling waves, focusing on an ultrasound beam to steer NK cells using blood-flow dynamics and a focused acoustic field. This method enables the precise obstruction of non-target vessels and efficiently directs NK cells toward the tumor site. The simulation results offer insights into the behavior of NK cells under various conditions of cell size, radiation pressure, and fluid velocity, which inform the optimization of their trajectories and increase targeting efficiency. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of this ultrasonic approach for enhancing NK cell targeting, suggesting a potential leap forward in solid tumor immunotherapy. This study represents a significant step in NK cell therapeutic strategies, offering a viable solution to the existing limitations and promising enhancement of the efficacy of cancer treatments.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.462-466
• /
• 2008

Adenoviruses are the most commonly used gene-delivery vectors due to the efficiency of their in vivo gene transfer. Since 1993, about 300 protocols using an adenoviral vector have been performed, although they have yet to be proven effective in clinical trials. The adenovirus-based vector has been continuously improved by modification of the adenoviral genome and capsid, and novel adenovirus-delivery systems, such as the carrier-cell delivery system, have been recently proposed. Adenovirus-based cancer gene therapy is fast becoming one component of a multi-modality treatment approach to advanced cancer, along with surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.115-131
• /
• 2011

Several common issues are encountered by countries - Germany, Japan, and the United States - that adopted long-term care (LTC) system. First, the demand for LTC and its associated costs have steeply risen following the implementation of the LTC policy. Second, ensuring the quality of services have been difficult. Third, the coordination of services among providers and between LTC and medical care has been inadequate. Learning from their experience, we suggest ways to improve the LTC system in Korea. The basic approach aims for efficiency over equity in the system. This would require promoting provider competition and consumer choice. We propose several policy options according to the major stakeholders. For consumers, cash benefits at fixed rates and personal savings accounts are feasible options to self-contain the demand and cost of services. On the insurer's side, creating an environment of multiple insurers will engender competition, leading to cost savings and quality care. For providers, delivery of quality services through competition, cost-containment through capitated reimbursements, and coordination of services through integrated delivery system can be achieved. From the assessors' perspective, establishing an information system to monitor the activities of insurers and providers would be important, empowering consumers with information to choose cost-effective service providers. In summary, the suggested approach would provide cost-effective LTC services by guaranteeing consumer choice and promoting major stakeholder accountability. Further studies are needed to test the feasibility of this model in ensuring quality LTC in Korea.

• The Journal of the Korean dental association
• /
• v.39 no.5 s.384
• /
• pp.405-410
• /
• 2001

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.1-19
• /
• 2018

This study aims to analyze the regional patterns of user-provider in medical services for spatial improvement of national health care delivery system in south Korea. By using the National Health Insurance Service National Sample Cohort DB, the characteristics and changes in the medical service cases served outside of residing regions are found. In 2013 the rate of the cases served outside of residing regions was declined slightly and users of medical institutions outside of their residing area tended to have high income level relatively and to visit hospitals than clinics. And departments visited have changed from 2002.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.24-36
• /
• 2016

The aims of this study is to investigate the status of nursing care delivery systems and nurse staffing levels and to analyze differences in the quality of nursing care by the type of nursing care delivery system. This research was based on data from 723 nurses working in 55 medical and surgical units in 26 general hospitals. Descriptive statistics on nurse staffing levels and the nursing care delivery system, and multi-level logistic regression were used to estimate the determinants of quality of nursing care. The number of patients per nurse is 17.74 patients in functional nursing care and 15.56 patients in total nursing care. In comparison to hospitals adopting total nursing care, hospitals with functional nursing care had greater patients. The nurses rated units using total nursing care as significantly better quality of nursing care than the units with functional nursing care. Total nursing care or modified total nursing care, rather than functional nursing care, could lead to improvement in the quality of care(total nursing care OR=3.895, modified total nursing care OR=2.475). Patient-centered approaches under proper circumstances can be successfully implemented and the positive effects demonstrated.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.27-80
• /
• 1993

It is widely known that patients' utilization pattern for medical care facilities and the patientflow are influenced by multi-factors, such as demographic characteristics, structural characteristics of society, socio-psychological characteristics(value, attitude, norms, culture, health behavior, etc.), economic characteristics(income, medical price, relative price, physician induced demand, etc.), geographical accessibility, systematic characteristics(health care delivery system, payment methods for physician fees, form of health care security, etc.), and characteristics of medical facilities(reliability, quality of medical care, convenience, kindness, tec.). This study was conducted to research the mechanism of patient-flow according to changes of health care system(implementation of national health insurance, health care referral system and regionalization of health care utilization, etc.) and characteristics of medical facilities(ownership of hospital, characteristics of medical services, non-medical characteristics, etc.). In this study, the fact could be ascertained that the patient-flow had been influenced by changes of health care system and characteristics of medical facilities.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.54-83
• /
• 2002

Korea's recent attempt to separate prescription and dispensation of pharmaceuticals suffers serious, negative side effects. The interned-based prescription delivery system is being considered a supportive tool to alleviate such side effects. This paper conducts an economic evaluation of the system. We consider all possible types of pecuniary costs and benefits, from societal perspective, to conclude that nationwide adoption of the system would raise net social benefits by 5,892 billion won for the coming five years. Specifically, the net benefits would be distributed among consumers (5,667 billion won), pharmacies (216 billion won) and medical institutions (8 billion won). Net social benefits would be far mere enhanced by deregulation policies, such as removal of restrictions on electronic type prescription and home-delivery of dispensed drugs.