• Title/Summary/Keyword: medical expense

Search Result 207, Processing Time 0.024 seconds

Analysis on the Income Gap Between Urban and Rural Areas Among the Three Major Areas in China (중국(中國) 3대(3大) 지역(地域) 도농(都農) 간(間) 소비격차(所得隔差) 현황(現況) 및 형성원인(形成原因)에 관(關)한 실증연구(實證硏究))

  • Nan, Xuefeng;Jin, Shizhu
    • Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
    • /
    • v.16 no.5
    • /
    • pp.537-548
    • /
    • 2010
  • As the rapid development of economy in China, the problem in income gaps become a tough and sensitive social problem. Under this social background, this research try to find the main reasons of the income gap among the East China, West China, and the central China, basing on the analysis of its actuality and forming, and then put forward some solution plans. The research shows that in different development levels of China influencing factor of urban-rural income gap is also different. Take East China for example, the education support plays an important part of narrowing income gap. The influence of education support on urban-rural income gaps more significant than industrialization, what is more, its influence has the more reinforce trend, while in the less developed central and western part in China, what can narrowing income gap significantly is industrialization and the support for agriculture. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of income gap between urban and rural areas in China radically, it is not enough to perform medical insurance reform and social insurance reform in the whole county. Besides this, we should perform other kinds of reformation countermeasures which have their regional characteristics. For example, in eastern, the regional governments should reinforce the education system; in central china, they should focus on developing industry; in western, the regional governments should increase the expense to support the agricultural development, and so on. With these countermeasures, they could not only relieve the gap between urban and rural areas in China, but also ensure to develop economy substantially and stably in the whole country.

  • PDF

Design and Implementation of Digital Electrical Impedance Tomography System (디지털 임피던스 영상 시스템의 설계 및 구현)

  • 오동인;백상민;이재상;우응제
    • Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
    • /
    • v.25 no.4
    • /
    • pp.269-275
    • /
    • 2004
  • Different biological tissues have different values of electrical resistivity. In EIT (electrical impedance tomography), we try to provide cross-sectional images of a resistivity distribution inside an electrically conducting subject such as the human body mainly for functional imaging. However, it is well known that the image reconstruction problem in EIT is ill-posed and the quality of a reconstructed image highly depends on the measurement error. This requires us to develop a high-performance EIT system. In this paper, we describe the development of a 16-channel digital EIT system including a single constant current source, 16 voltmeters, main controller, and PC. The system was designed and implemented using the FPGA-based digital technology. The current source injects 50KHz sinusoidal current with the THD (total harmonic distortion) of 0.0029% and amplitude stability of 0.022%. The single current source and switching circuit reduce the measurement error associated with imperfect matching of multiple current sources at the expense of a reduced data acquisition time. The digital voltmeter measuring the induced boundary voltage consists of a differential amplifier, ADC, and FPGA (field programmable gate array). The digital phase-sensitive demodulation technique was implemented in the voltmeter to maximize the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio). Experimental results of 16-channel digital voltmeters showed the SNR of 90dB. We used the developed EIT system to reconstruct resistivity images of a saline phantom containing banana objects. Based on the results, we suggest future improvements for a 64-channel muff-frequency EIT system for three-dimensional dynamic imaging of bio-impedance distributions inside the human body.

A Clinical Proterties on Nutrients Intake and Serum Concentration of Diabetic Subjects by Duration in Ansung Kyunggi-do (경기도 안성지역 당뇨병 환자의 유병기간에 따른 영양소 섭취 실태와 혈액성상의 임상적 특징)

  • 노숙령
    • Journal of Nutrition and Health
    • /
    • v.30 no.10
    • /
    • pp.1203-1210
    • /
    • 1997
  • This study was performed from March to June 1994 in ANsung Medical Center. We investigated serum components of 78 diabetics in the center, in addition to the nutrient intake status and anthrophometric status of 60 diabetics among them. We separated the latter into 2 groups(ⅰ) less tan 5 years of diabetic duration and ⅱ) more than 6 years of diabetic duration) and analyzed the clinical characteristics of each group. The results are as follows : \circled1 The average ages of male and female subjects were 57.1 and 58.9 years, respectively. The average diabetic duration of male subjects was 4.8 years and that of female subjects was 5.9 . The major occupational field of both male and female subjects was agriculture(33.3%, 36.1%). 50% of male and 75% of female subject's monthly incomes were less than 600, 000 won and 75% of male and 94.4% of female subjects had weekly food expense less than 40, 000 won. The nutrient intake status of the subjects was lower than RDA on the whole. There was no big differences between 2 the male groups of different diabetic duration , but calorie, protein , fat carbohydrate, phosphorus, iron and Vit B$_1$intakes of the above 6 year female group were appearently higher than those of the under 5 year female group (p<0.05). There were different intake tendencies between male and female subjects . For females. the longer the diabetic duration, the less intakes of calorie, protein , fat carbohydrate, phosphorus, iron Vit B$_1$, Vit B$_2$, and niacin were observed. Furthermore, the longer the diabetic duration in females , the more intakes of energy and nutrients, except Vit C were observed. Fasting blood glucose levels were 155mg/dl and 164mg/dl and Postprandial glucose levels were 242mg/dl and 247mg/dl for males and females respectively. Hb of both males and females , and Ht of males met the lower limit of normal status, The serum TG level was higher than normal , so that they seemed to suffer from hyperlipidemia ; their high HbAIC status indicated that the management of diabetes mellitus was poor. The total protein level of female subject was higher when compared with that of males(p<0.05). All subjects blood pressure were higher than normal , and the longer the diabetic duration, the higher was the blood pressure. The serum HDL-cholesterol levels of the above 6 year group male subjects were lower(p<0.05) than those of the under 5 year male group subjects, and the former group's systolic and diastolic blood pressures were higher than those of the latter(p<0.05). Levels of serum total protein, albumin and TG of the above 6 year female group were lower than those of the under 5 year female group(p<0.05). As the diabetic duration was extended, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol levels showed a tendency to increase, while Hb, Ht, total protein, albumin, and A/G, which represent the nutrients state of iron and protein, were inclined to decrease. This result showed that serum lipid components went bad. To summarize the results, the longer the diabetic duration, the worse were the male subjects nutrient intake status, but those of the female subjects were good. With respect to serum components and serum lipid subjects Fe, protein, nutrition status and serum lipid component got worse as the diabetic duration was extended , implying the possibility of diabetes mellitus complication grows.

  • PDF

Towards Routine Clinical Use of Radial Stack-of-Stars 3D Gradient-Echo Sequences for Reducing Motion Sensitivity

  • Block, Kai Tobias;Chandarana, Hersh;Milla, Sarah;Bruno, Mary;Mulholland, Tom;Fatterpekar, Girish;Hagiwara, Mari;Grimm, Robert;Geppert, Christian;Kiefer, Berthold;Sodickson, Daniel K.
    • Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    • /
    • v.18 no.2
    • /
    • pp.87-106
    • /
    • 2014
  • Purpose : To describe how a robust implementation of a radial 3D gradient-echo sequence with stack-of-stars sampling can be achieved, to review the imaging properties of radial acquisitions, and to share the experience from more than 5000 clinical patient scans. Materials and Methods: A radial stack-of-stars sequence was implemented and installed on 9 clinical MR systems operating at 1.5 and 3 Tesla. Protocols were designed for various applications in which motion artifacts frequently pose a problem with conventional Cartesian techniques. Radial scans were added to routine examinations without selection of specific patient cohorts. Results: Radial acquisitions show significantly lower sensitivity to motion and allow examinations during free breathing. Elimination of breath-holding reduces failure rates for non-compliant patients and enables imaging at higher resolution. Residual artifacts appear as streaks, which are easy to identify and rarely obscure diagnostic information. The improved robustness comes at the expense of longer scan durations, the requirement for fat suppression, and the nonexistence of a time-to-center value. Care needs to be taken during the configuration of receive coils. Conclusion: Routine clinical use of radial stack-of-stars sequences is feasible with current MR systems and may serve as substitute for conventional fat-suppressed T1-weighted protocols in applications where motion is likely to degrade the image quality.

Nursing Need and Satisfaction of Patients in Hospice Ward (호스피스병동 입원 환자의 간호요구도와 간호만족도)

  • Kim, Jung Ah;Kim, Kyunghee;Kang, Hee Sun;Kim, Ji-Su
    • Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
    • /
    • v.17 no.4
    • /
    • pp.248-258
    • /
    • 2014
  • Purpose: This study was conducted to explore the nursing needs and satisfaction of patients who are hospitalized at hospice palliative care institutions. Methods: This study included 80 hospice patients who were in-patients of the hospice department of two general hospitals in S city. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson's correlation coefficients using the IBM SPSS 20.0 program. Results: The mean score of nursing needs and satisfaction were 3.58 (${\pm}0.31$) and 3.25 (${\pm}0.20$) respectively. Significant differences in hospice nursing needs and satisfaction were observed in terms of general characteristics including gender, education level, occupation, religion, support for medical expense and functional status. Significant positive correlation was found between the overall nursing needs and nursing satisfaction. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, in order to improve the quality of hospice service, further study is necessary in a comprehensive manner to develop nursing intervention to meet physical, psychological/social, spiritual, and educational/referral nursing needs of hospice in-patients.

The Effect of Use of Senior Center on the Life Satisfaction of the Aged (노인종합복지관 이용이 노후 삶의 만족도에 미치는 영향)

  • Lee, Yoon-sung;Cho, Jong-hyeon
    • Journal of Venture Innovation
    • /
    • v.2 no.1
    • /
    • pp.57-79
    • /
    • 2019
  • We have been experiencing an lengthened life expectancy due to rapid industrialization, economic and medical development. In particular, the elderly population was only 5.1% of the total population in 1900s when the senior centers were established, but 30 years later, the elderly population aged 65 or older reached 6.54 million in 2015 and became 14% in 2017. There is a very meaningful correlation between service quality of the senior welfare center and the life satisfaction of the elderly, where the elderly spend their leisure time on a daily basis. Accordingly, this study tried to identify the desirable conditions that the elderly think and the difference from the desired status and the actual status to identify what information and services should be provided by senior welfare centers. Gwanak Senior Welfare Center has provided senior welfare service for local seniors for 30 years since its establishment and contributed to silver welfare policy establishment based on the accumulated experiences. In the coming era of GDP 30,000 dollars, National Pension era and average life span 100 years, the new creative silver welfare programs should be introduced such as qualitative programs rather than quantitative, programs for caring minorities, complimentary or actual expense programs, creative programs rather than passive ones, and diversity of the subjects. This study would like to present the future direction for the next 30 years.

A Study of Perceptions among Middle-aged and Older Koreans about Dying Well: Focusing on Typology (중노년층의 좋은 죽음에 대한 인식: 유형화를 중심으로)

  • Lee, Sunhee;Chung, Kyunghee
    • 한국노년학
    • /
    • v.39 no.2
    • /
    • pp.305-323
    • /
    • 2019
  • In recognition of the increasing social attention paid to the notion of how to die well, this study explored what it is that middle-aged and older Koreans think of as "dying well." Specifically, it was aimed at classifying the perceptions people middle-aged and older have regarding dying well. To this end, we used data from the National Survey on Well-Dying, which was conducted in 2018 by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, and employed Latent Class Analysis. The demographic characteristics of each of the classified subgroups were identified through technical statistics. The types identified were multilayered depending on the imminence of death, perspectives of the last stages before dying, and the meaning of death in the context of social relationships. These types differed according to gender and subjective health conditions. Based on our findings in this study, we put forward policy suggestions about awareness improvement of personal and social levels, promoting on comprehensive death preparation, providing a system to reduce the cost of medical and nursing expense at the end of one's life, promoting of the right to self-determination regarding death, raising social attention to groups that are least prepared for dying well.

A Study on the Degree of Physical, Psychological and Social Adaptation of CVA Patients (뇌졸중(腦卒中) 환자(患者)의 신체적(身體的).심리적(心理的).사회적(社會的) 적응도(適應度)에 관(關)한 연구(硏究))

  • Hwang Hyun-Sook;Park Kyung-Sook
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
    • /
    • v.3 no.2
    • /
    • pp.213-233
    • /
    • 1996
  • This study was made on 274 apoplectics patients who received the rehabilitation therapy and tests on physical, psychological and social adaptations as outpatients in 23 general hospitals in the Seoul and Kyungi area. The basic data on degree of improvement of apoplectic patients studied from rehabilitation therapy. Data was collected over a period of 63 days, from February 21st till April, 23, 1996. The assigned physical therapist conducted direct interviews with patients after he answered the distributed questionnaires for each individual patient. The colleted data was processed by the $SPCC/C^+$ method. The results of the tests conducted to meascne the the degree of ADL dependency, depression and social activity corresponding to the physical, psychological, and social adaptation. The details are ; 1) The test to meascne the degree of ADL dependency, corresponding to the study of physical adaptation of CVA patients, indicated a mean score of 2.57(ideal score is 1.0) with a standard deviation of ${\pm}0.75$. The worst score was 3.95 while the best score was a perfect 1.0, representing a severe range of dependency. The distribution was centered with a median of 2.65 and a mode of 2.68. 2) The test to meascne the degree of depression which corresponds to the level of psychological adaptation yielded a mean of 2.99 which is higher than the normal limit of 2.45. The standard deviation was ${\pm}0.52$ and the worst score and the best score were 4.35 and Respectirdy. The distribution was centered with a median of 3.00 and a mode of 3.00. 3) The test to meascne the degree of social activities for the level of social adaptation indicated a very low mean score of 26.52 (perfect score is 144), with the standard deviation of ${\pm}16.23$. Some patients scored as high as 100, but others scored as low as 3. The distribution of social activities at a very low level was shifted to the left with a median of 24.00 and a mode of 20.00. 4) Factors influencing the level of physical, psychological and social adaptation are as follows : Factors significantly influencing the level of physical adaptation measured by ADL dependency are age, personal guardian, payer of medical expenses, and paralysis of the right arm, right leg and facial paralysis. Factors significantly influencing the level of psychological adaptation measured by the degree of depression, are age, marital status, education, medical history of individual and family, speech impediment, and facial paralysis. Factors significantly influencing the level of social adaptation measured by the degree of social activity are age, marital status, education, employment status, and the burden of medical expense. 5) The Corelationship is significant(9.00), between ADL dependeing as degree of physical adaptation and depreseion as degree of psychologial adaptation. ADL dependency is proportional to depression. But social activity is inversely protional to ADL dependeny and depression. In conclusion, the increased care for physical function of the patients is not the only necessary means to better facilitate the appropriate adaptation of CVA patients. The introduction of a solid rehabilitation program for psychological and social adaptation will also play the integral part of the treatment of CVA patients.

  • PDF

Performance of Occupational Health Services by Type of Service : Cost Benefit Analysis (사업장 보건관리 사업의 형태별 수행성과 분석 -비용편익 분석을 중심으로-)

  • Cho, Tong Ran;Kim, Hwa Joong
    • Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
    • /
    • v.4
    • /
    • pp.5-29
    • /
    • 1995
  • Occupational health services in Korea have been operated as dual types : one is operated by occupational health care manager and the other is health care agency without their own personnel. The performance of occupational health service should be different due to the variety of characteristics of health care manager and workplace, qualification of health care manager. This study is to analyze performance of occupational health care services with a particular consideration of job performance shape and efficiency, based on comparing those two types of health care management to show on the basic data for the settlement of more qualitative health care management system at workplace. For this study, total 391 places in Seoul and Inchon city area ; 154 places (39.4%) managed by designated health care manager and 237 places (60.6%) by the agency with their commission are selected as research samples. Tools for data collection are questionnares that have been investigated during the period of 20 September 1993-20 December 1993. Those data are compared with percentiles, mean, standard deviation and B/C ratio using SPSS PC program. Conclusions observed from the tests and each comparison could be summerized as follows : 1. Occupational health care have been accomplished at workplaces with designated people than with agencies people, and coverage rate of the occupational health care services has differences, due to management types. The reason of these results is due to visit only one or two times monthly by the agencies, while their own health care manager obsess, at the workplaces all the times. 2. Most of the expense for environmental control of all health care services expenditures shows that there is almost no fundamental improvement because more expenses are needed for procuring personal protective equipment and measuring work environment instead of environmental improvement. 3. It is investigated how much the cost of occupational health care services needs per worker, and calculated how much the cost needs per service hour per worker. The results from this show that the cost of occupational health services at workplaces with their own managers used less than the cost of health care agencies, eventually the former gives better services with less cost than the latter. 4. Benefit/Cost ratio is also produced by total benefit/total cost. The result from the above way reads 4.57 as a whole, while their own manager having workplaces reads 4.82 and the agencies do l.56. Even if their own manager performing workplaces spent more cost, this system produces more benefit than the agencies management. 5. The B/C ratio for medical organization such as local clinic, health care center and pharmacy shows more than or equal to at the workplaces controlled by the agencies. It is inferred that benefit would be much less than the cost used, with so being inefficient. 6. It is assumed that the efficiency ratio of health education is equal to reduction rate of workers medical organization visit. Estimated reduction rate 5%, 10%, 15%, show that the efficiency ratio of health education have an effect on producing benefits. It is estimated that more benefit can be produced if more qualitative education will be provided for enhancing health care efficiency. 7. Results of this study cannot be generalized because there are large scale of deviation in case of workplaces with less than 300 full time workers, but B/C ratio reads 2.69 as a whole and 3.25 at workplaces with their own health care manager are higher than 1.63 at the workplaces manged by the agencies. Finally, all the benefit concerning health care services could not be quantified, measured and shown on the value of money. This is a reason that a considerable part of benefits are so underestimated. This is also thought that measurement tools should be developed for measuring benefits of health care services with a comprehensive quantification. in the future. It is also expected that efficiency of occupational health care services should be investigated using cost-effectiveness analysis.

  • PDF

A Study on the Actual Conditions of Denture Prosthodontics used by the Elderly Aged 65 or Older in Seoul (시술장소에 따른 65세 이상 노인의 의치보철 실태 조사연구)

  • Jung, Jung-Ock
    • Journal of dental hygiene science
    • /
    • v.7 no.3
    • /
    • pp.113-119
    • /
    • 2007
  • This study attempts to find factors contributing to the use pattern of prosthetics by investigating the current condition of prosthetics for the aged of over 65 years old by place of practice. Among those of over 65 years old who live in Gangnam-gu, Seocho-gu, Seongbuk-gu, and Gwanak-gu of Seoul and use the apartment senior's center, those having prosthetics were selected as subjects of this study, and this study was conducted in forms of interview and record. Findings of this study are summarized as follows: First, in regard of the state of prosthetics and relevant symptoms in the mouth according to the place of prosthetics practice, there was significant difference in the questions except the medical benefit of prosthetics between unlicensed facilities and dental clinics and hospitals. Second, regarding difference in satisfaction according to the place of prosthetics practice, dental clinics and hospitals showed a higher level of aesthetic satisfaction than unlicensed facilities. For difference in satisfaction at pronunciation, chewing, pain, a sense of foreign body, and holding power, dental clinics and hospitals showed a higher level than unlicensed facilities, Third, after factor analysis on the perception factors of unlicensed treatment and dental treatment, unlicensed facilities showed the highest level of reliability, and then convenience, word of mouth, and modernity in order. Dental clinics and hospitals also showed the highest level of reliability, however, and then convenience, modernity, and word of mouth in order. Fourth, as a consequence of analyzing the factors to influence the use pattern of prosthetics, regarding residential pattern, there were higher possibilities to use dental clinics and hospitals when the subjects lived together with their children and in Gangnam, and the more were the number of pyeong for the residence, pocket money, medical expense, and property in their name, compared to unlicensed facilities. In conclusion, economic factors appear to be the most important factors in selecting facilities for denture prosthodontics. Therefore, it is important to ensure the denture prosthodontics for the elderly are reimbursable so that they can enjoy a healthier life.

  • PDF