• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.5-9
• /
• 1976

The categories of national health problems may be mainly divided into health promotion, problems of diseases, and population-economic problems which are indirectly related to health. Of them, the problems of diseases will be exclusively dealt with this speech. Rurality and Disease Problems There are many differences between rural and urban areas. In general, indicators of rurality are small size of towns, dispersion of the population, remoteness from urban centers, inadequacy of public transportation, poor communication, inadequate sanitation, poor housing, poverty, little education lack of health personnels and facilities, and in-accessibility to health services. The influence of such conditions creates, directly or indirectly, many problems of diseases in the rural areas. Those art the occurrence of preventable diseases, deterioration and prolongation of illness due to loss of chance to get early treatment, decreased or prolonged labour force loss, unnecessary death, doubling of medical cost, and economic loss. Some Considerations of Innovative Approach The followings art some considerations of innovative approaches to the problems of diseases in the rural Korea. 1. It would be essential goal of the innovative approaches that the damage and economic loss due to diseases will be maintained to minimum level by minimizing the absolute amount of the diseases, and by moderating the fee for medical cares. The goal of the minimization of the disease amount may be achieved by preventive services and early treatment, and the goal of moderating the medical fee may be achieved by lowering the prime cost and by adjusting the medical fees to reasonable level. 2. Community health service or community medicine will be adopted as a innovative means to disease problems. In this case, a community is defined as an unit area where supply and utilization of primary service activities can be accomplished within a day. The essential nature o the community health service should be such activities as health promotion, preventive measures, medical care, and rehabilitation performing efficiently through the organized efforts of the residents in a community. Each service activity should cover all members of the residents in a community in its plan and performance. The cooperation of the community peoples in one of the essential elements for success of the service program, The motivations of their cooperative mood may be activated through several ways: when the participation of the residents in service program of especially the direct participation of organized cooperation of the area leaders art achieved through a means of health education: when the residents get actual experience of having received the benefit of good quality services; and when the health personnels being armed with an idealism that they art working in the areas to help health problems of the residents, maintain good human relationships with them. For the success of a community health service program, a personnel who is in charge of leadership and has an able, a sincere and a steady characters seems to be required in a community. The government should lead and support the community health service programs of the nation under the basis of results appeared in the demonstrative programs so as to be carried out the programs efficiently. Moss of the health problems may be treated properly in the community levels through suitable community health service programs but there might be some problems which art beyond their abilities to be dealt with. To solve such problems each community health service program should be under the referral systems which are connected with health centers, hospitals, and so forth. 3. An approach should be intensively groped to have a physician in each community. The shortage of physicians in rural areas is world-wide problem and so is the Korean situation. In the past the government has initiated a system of area-limited physician, coercion, and a small scale of scholarship program with unsatisfactory results. But there might be ways of achieving the goal by intervice, broadened, and continuous approaches. There will be several ways of approach to motivate the physicians to be settled in a rural community. They are, for examples, to expos the students to the community health service programs during training, to be run community health service programs by every health or medical schools and other main medical facilities, communication activities and advertisement, desire of community peoples to invite a physician, scholarship program, payment of satisfactory level, fulfilment of military obligation in case of a future draft, economic growth and development of rural communities, sufficiency of health and medical facilities, provision of proper medical care system, coercion, and so forth. And, hopefully, more useful reference data on the motivations may be available when a survey be conducted to the physicians who are presently engaging in the rural community levels. 4. In communities where the availability of a physician is difficult, a trial to use physician extenders, under certain conditions, may be considered. The reason is that it would be beneficial for the health of the residents to give them the remedies of primary medical care through the extenders rather than to leave their medical problems out of management. The followings are the conditions to be considered when the physician extenders are used: their positions will be prescribed as a temporary one instead of permanent one so as to allow easy replacement of the position with a physician applicant; the extender will be under periodic direction and supervision of a physician, and also referral channel will be provided: legal constraints will be placed upon the extenders primary care practice, and the physician extenders will used only under the public medical care system. 5. For the balanced health care delivery, a greater investment to the rural areas is needed to compensate weak points of a rurality. The characteristics of a rurality has been already mentioned. The objective of balanced service for rural communities to level up that of urban areas will be hard to achieve without greater efforts and supports. For example, rural communities need mobile powers more than urban areas, communication network is extremely necessary at health delivery facilities in rural areas as well as the need of urban areas, health and medical facilities in rural areas should be provided more substantially than those of urban areas to minimize, in a sense, the amount of patient consultation and request of laboratory specimens through referral system of which procedures are more troublesome in rural areas, and more intensive control measures against communicable diseases are needed in rural areas where greater numbers of cases are occurred under the poor sanitary conditions.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.71-92
• /
• 2005

The purpose of this study is to analyze the efficiency in management of general hospitals and investigate the major factors on efficiency. Specifically, the management of each general hospital is evaluated by using Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) technique which is a nonparametric statistical method for measurement of efficiency. Then, the influencing factors are investigated through analyses of Decision-Tree Model and Tobit Regression. The target hospitals were general hospitals in which bed sizes are between 200 and 500 among a total of 276 general hospitals. The main data of financial indicators were collected from 48 hospitals, and it was analyzed by using two statistical models. For Model I, three input and two output variables were used for efficiency evaluation. In particular, three input variables were the number of medical doctors, the number of paramedical personnel, and the bed size. And, two output variables were the numbers of inpatients and outpatients per year, adjusted by bed-size. The results of DEA analysis showed that only seven out of 48 hospitals(15%) turned out to be efficient. The decision-tree analysis also showed that there were six significant influencing factors for Model I. Six factors for Model I were Bed Occupancy Rate, Cost per Adjusted Inpatient, New Visit Ratio of Outpatients, Retired Ratio, Net Profit to Gross Revenues, Net Profit to Total Assets. In addition, the management efficiency of hospital is proved to increase as profit and patient-induced indicators increase and cost-related indicators decrease, by the Tobit regression model of independent variables derived from the decision-tree analysis. This study may be contributable to the development of analytic methodology regarding the efficiency of hospital management in that it suggests the synthetic measures by utilizing DEA model instead of suggesting simple ratio-analyzing results.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.116-124
• /
• 1997

Background : As parking problem caused by increasing owner-driver and patients concentrating to a general hospital is becoming one of the dissatisfactions in medical care. It is time that a general hospital should solve the parking problem in a desirable way. The purpose of this survey is to let the clients understand the basic motivation of the pay parking and develop the better parking system. Methods : Clients of a tertiary care hospital in Chon-ju were surveyed by means of a questionnaire. All in all, 193 subjects answered the questionnaire. Results : In relation to previous experiences, 39.6% of the subjects experienced inconvenience with confused parking lot and the shortage of parking space. Under the current parking system, the subjects who felt the available parking space was enough were more than those who didn't 62.7% of the subjects answered that they could find the parking lot easily. 33.2% of the subjects mentioned that it was not easy to drive in the parking area ; The reasons were pointed out the shortage of space, disordered parking, and insufficient guide. 12.8% of the subjects satisfied with the current administering system of parking lot. The outpatients were more affirmative than the admitted patients about the charging system. As for the parking fee, 64% of the subjects answered that it is expensive, and 89.5% of the subjects thought imposing of parking fee is irrational. Conclusion : To say as a whole, the basic purpose of the charging system are more or less accepted. However, the management details like parking facilities and payment method are dissatisfactory, so it is necessary to improve the management system. It is also noted that the inpatients showed more negative attitude than the outpatients with the charging system. To secure a more convenient parking, the parking system should be considered in relation to the information service, kind guidance, improve facilities, personnel cooperation, fix outpatient scheduling system, etc.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.43-58
• /
• 2012

This study was designed to investigate the impact of a 12-week nutrition education program on 32 male industrial workers (average age: $44.5{\pm}3.8$ yrs, work duration period: $20.1{\pm}5.6$ yrs) diagnosed as having dyslipidemia in a medical checkup at their workplace. This program was implemented with a conceptual framework on strengthening self-efficacy for the improvement of the health conditions of the workers. Most of all, the study exhibited benefits in the industrial workers by ameliorating the risk factors associated with dyslipidemia via changes in dietary behaviors, nutritional knowledge, and attitudes, as well as anthropometric and biochemical parameters. After the nutrition education, overall lifestyle, including the ratios of smoking (P<0.05) and drinking (P<0.01), significantly improved. Exactly 65.6% of the subjects reported that their dietary habits changed. Body weight, BMI, percentage of body fat, and waist circumference all significantly decreased (P<0.001). The systolic (P<0.01) as well as diastolic blood pressures (P<0.001) decreased. Moreover, the degree of increase in serum HDL-cholesterol was appreciable (P<0.001), and the atherogenic index also decreased (P<0.01). Further, risk factors related to metabolic syndrome in subjects significantly decreased (P<0.001). The average scores for nutrition knowledge increased from 9.3 to 17.7 points (P<0.001). All of the participants agreed on the need for a nutrition education program at their workplace. Further, it should be pointed out that the participants strongly indicated the need for continuing nutrition intervention.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.44 no.1
• /
• pp.86-96
• /
• 2014

Purpose: This study was conducted to examine and compare satisfaction with Korean health care services for Americans, Chinese and Russians who resided in Korea. Methods: A questionnaire was distributed to 252 participants (81 Americans, 89 Chinese, 82 Russians). Three focus group interviews were subsequently conducted in order to obtain a greater understanding of participants' experience and perspectives. Results: The average satisfaction score was 3.09, with Americans and Russians showing significantly higher scores than Chinese. Overall, participants reported higher satisfaction in 'Facility', 'Quality of care' and 'Nursing services' as opposed to 'Information/education'. 'Care with cultural respect' as well as communication related services. Data from the focus group interviews were categorized into 12 sub-categories, 7 categories and 2 themes. The two themes were common experience and contrasting experience. Common experience included 4 categories, 'Quality of care', 'Hospital facility and health care system', 'Language barrier' and 'Information and education'. Contrasting experience included 3 categories, 'Medical cost', 'Health care personnel' and 'Accessibility'. Conclusion: Results of this study provide basic knowledge on foreign residents' satisfaction and experience with Korean health care services. Further research is needed with foreigners from different cultural backgrounds. Administrative and educational efforts are required to improve communication skills and cultural competency.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.167-175
• /
• 2020

Purpose: This study aims to understand the effect of attitudes toward COVID-19, subjective norms, and intentions toward social distancing as a preventative measure for COVID-19 in nursing university students, and to provide basic data for COVID-19 prevention. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was used in this study. The participants included 169 nursing students at a university in G city. Data were collected from 22 May 2020 to 1 June 2020. A self-report questionnaire was used. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficients, and multiple regression analyses with the IBM/SPSS 26.0 for Window Program. Results: Intention was the most influential factor on social distancing (β=.29, p=.002), followed by the number of breakfasts per week (β=.18, p=.005), school grade (β=-.16, p<.001), and smoking status (β=-.13, p=.046). These variables explained 35.0% of factors influencing social distancing (F=12.24, p<.001). Conclusion: The results of this study are meaningful and present a direction for nursing students and future medical personnel to effectively perform social distancing. It is necessary to educate nursing students so that they can practice proper health care habits and intentions for social distancing.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.641-652
• /
• 1995

Working as nurses, authors found that some patients were not content with their hospital life. Some patients wanted to move to another ward, and others complained about their ward atmosphere. In spite of patients' discomfort, nurses didn't know what made some patients complain about their ward. So, authors tried to find factors that influence atmosphere of hospital wards of the neurosurgery patients. To know the atmosphere of wards, authors selected five neurosurgery ward of a university hospital in Seoul. Observation took a month. An author observed using molar approach, in the morning, in the day time, and in evening time. Authors used concealment /no intervention technique. An author checked condition of people in the wards, and observed their verbal and nonverbal communication behavior their activities and environmental characteristics, and interpreted their meaning through ethnographic research methodology by Spradly. Authors found there was an important factors that influence the atmosphere of ward. It was a human and his attitude. At least one person who was willing to help others made ward atmosphere better. Helping others physically whenever needed, sup-porting the depressed emotionally, offering foods, or talking to others friendly brought good atmosphere. On the contrary, if everyone was indiffernt to others, the atmosphere became cold. Self-centered or selfish behaviors such as occupying too much area, using the toilet too long, covering other's suction bottle without permission and seeing others delicate or urinate were hurtful. In addition to the attitude of patients and their families, unkindness of medical teams including nurses and doctors and tasteless meal caused bad ward atmosphere. Based on this research finding, authors suggest the followings. A For the better atmosphere of ward 1. Nurses should try to make the ward atmosphere better by introducing new patient to older ones. 2. Every ward should have dividing curtains to keep patient's privacy. 3. All hospital personnel should be kind enough to make patients feel that they are repected. 4. Hospital should serve high quality meals to patients. 5. Patients had better stay with those in the similar condition. B. For the future studies 1. Repeated researches are necessary to check reliability of this results. 2. Researches for patients in different area such as ICU, or hemodialysis unit are necessary.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.117-127
• /
• 2020

Recently, proving insurance fraud has become increasingly difficult because it occurs intentionally and secretly via organized and intelligent conspiracy by specialists such as medical personnel, maintenance companies, insurance planners, and insurance subscribers. In the case of car accidents, it is difficult to prove intentions; in particular, an insurance company with no investigation rights has practical limitations in proving the suspicions. This paper aims reveal that the detection of organized and conspired insurance fraud, which had previously been difficult, could be dramatically improved through conspiring insurance fraud detection modeling using social network analysis and visualization of the relation between suspected group entities and by seeking developmental research possibilities of data analysis techniques.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.180-189
• /
• 2018

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of nurses' awareness of healthcare accreditation on their job stress and turnover intention. Methods: Across-sectional correlation study design was used. Participants consisted of 143 nurses from two tertiary hospitals in Seoul and Gyunggido, South Korea. Data were collected in October 2016 using self-report questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, an ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and multiple regression in SPSS/WIN 21.0. Results: Awareness of health care accreditation correlated negatively with job stress (r=-.63, p<.001) and turn over intention (r=-.50, p<.001). Awareness of health care accreditation was the factor that most influenced job stress, explaining 38% of the variance (F=23.10, p<.001). Awareness of health care accreditation and duty pattern were the factors that most influenced intention to leave, explaining 32% of the variance (F=10.35, p<.001). Conclusion: These findings suggest raising nurses' awareness of certification systems to reduce their job stress and turnover intentions. It will be necessary to provide support for the aggressive work nurses do and improve their work structure, highlighting the need for both manpower and institutional support. Accordingly, providing regular education programs and appropriate compensation schemes, by raising nurses' awareness of medical institutions' certification systems, is necessary.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.23-35
• /
• 2008

Improved nutritional intake contributes to maintaining health and quality of life in elderly population and also reducing individual and social medical costs. Most of nutrition assistance programs for elderly, such as congregate or home-delivered meal programs, are not currently serviced in rural communities mainly due to low cost efficiency of program operation. However, the needs and necessity of such programs are presumed to be higher in rural area where the population density of elderly at nutritional risk is relatively high. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a community-based meal program for the rural elderly. In 2007, four rural communities located in Jeon-Nam province were selected and the pilot meal program was applied for three months. Following are key features of the meal program model developed in this study: 1) meal production and service are operated by elderly participants to overcome the voluntary personnel shortage 2) utilization of locally-produced foods is maximized to reduce the meal cost, 3) traditional cooking methods are applied to adjust the food preference of elderly, and 4) foods are serviced on site to minimize the food safety problem possibly caused by delivery process. The pilot programs resulted in high satisfaction with the programs of participating elderly. The community-based meal program model developed in this study is expected to be used as an effective nutrition and health intervention model for the rural elderly.