• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.43-61
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relations between publicness and profitability of national university hospitals in Korea. Finance and management data from 2008 to 2010 were collected from balancing accounts and annual reports in 13 national university hospitals. The dependant variables are used profitability indicators which are operating margin, net profit to gross revenues, normal profit to gross revenues. The independent variables are publicness indicators which are medical social work, ratio of medical aid in inpatients, ratio of medical aid in outpatients, publicness index. The results show that operating margin, net profit to gross revenues in profitability indicators are affected by medical social work in publicness indicators. Normal profit to gross revenues in profitability indicators is strong related to medical social work and hospital province in publicness indicators. Based on these results, this study suggests implications to balance the publicness and the profitability in national university hospitals.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.44-57
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• 2017

The objective of this study is to investigate financial integrity strategies for sustainable development of local public medical centers, and particularly focus on seeking ways to enhance its financial efficiency and publicness. The data which was collected from 33 local public medical centers was analyzed by Data Envelopment Analysis to measure its financial efficiency. Then, Matrix Analysis was used to examine the association of financial efficiency and publicness of local public medical centers with related factors. In the aspects of facilities and location, according to the results, the local public medical centers which have larger number of available hospital beds or located in bigger cities were examined to have higher degree of publicness. In the aspect of human resources, greater number of doctors made both financial efficiency and the degree of publicness decreased, whereas higher participation rate of educational program for doctors affects increasing its financial efficiency and publicness. Lastly, in the aspect of costs, higher labor, material, and administrative cost diminished financial efficiency, but enhanced the degree of publicness. Based on these results, this study concluded that enhancing the publicness of local public medical centers should be pursued by increasing the accessibility with better facilities and location, and also concurrently organizing rational expenditure structure with appropriate cost investment to the resources of local public medical centers. Also, it is necessary to enhance both financial efficiency and publicness simultaneously by improving the quality of health care services through the educational programs for medical staffs.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.51-62
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• 2016

Background: The publicness concept in healthcare has been built to its social consensus relying on historical context, with the result that the meaning of publicness has a great diversity and heterogeneous nature in Korea. Thus it needs to be addressed to clarify the meaning and boundary of the publicness concept in healthcare, so as to discuss its social implication. Methods: In order to investigate whether or how the publicness concept is used in healthcare, we conducted a text network analysis in 779 news articles from 8 Korean daily newspapers over a recent 5-year period. Results: The publicness concept was closely related to medicine and medical institution, and formed a conceptual network with public health, medicine, welfare, patient, government, Jin-ju city, and health. Keywords relating publicness tended to be similar between four major newspapers; however, the association with Jin-ju city, government, and society was noticeable in Kyunghyang Shinmun and Hankyoreh, and so was patient and service in Dong-A Ilbo. Conclusion: Publicness and medicine was closely associated, and government seemed to remain as a main actor for public interest. Publicness was related with a variety of actors and values, with its expanded boundary. The different contexts of publicness by newspapers might reflect each ideological inclination. The textual importance of publicness was relatively low in part, which suggests that publicness was used in a loose sense or as a routine.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Planning & Design
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.31-38
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to compare between professionalism in medical field(doctor) and architectural design field(architect) in Korea through synchronic and diachronic analysis, with basic requirement of expertise and systemicity, attitude requirement of the publicness, and structural requirement of exclusiveness and autonomy. The medical professionalism adapted by Korean government in the early period of modernization evolved from Western's professional expertise is highly divided as economy grew and society changed. In comparison, architecture was divided into architecture, urbanism, landscape, and interior architecture. Additionally, architectural field was subdivided with architectural design, engineering, construction, structure, and facilities, but architectural design focused on generalized education and practice system. From the systematical point of view, architectural design field has changed profoundly from architectural engineering as 5 year undergraduate educational system was introduced with Korean architectural accreditation. The publicness is approved through health service in medical field and safety and the public domain in architectural design field, but in reality the professionals are viewed as economic interest groups. Hence, the professionalism in both fields is required to reinforce ideology and ethics, and to practice concrete measures for publicness. Compared with the unified organization of medical field, architectural design professionalism faces various difficulties in unifying the organization, such as internal competition caused by tightened architect's requirements, along with external problems from architectural design permission demands of construction companies. In medical and architectural design professionalism, with the appearance of consumerism and stricter governmental regulations, the autonomy is weakened. From the result of comparative analysis, Korean medical field became extremely subdivided and specialized in each department, therefore integration of each disease and establishment of centers are proposed as solutions. By contrast, the reinforcement of expertise in architectural design professionalism might be necessary to strengthen autonomy caused by governmental restriction, and to form architectural culture and secure public architecture.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.67-83
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• 2019

The aim of this study is to analyze the differences in the publicness indices depending on the environmental factors of regional public hospitals to derive the policy implications for improving management for regional public hospitals. The data of the 34 regional public hospitals from 2016 was used for the analysis. Major results of this study are as follows. First, the analysis of the differences in the scores of the medical safety net function showed significantly higher scores for regional public hospitals with a larger location, a larger number of hospitals in a unit area, a larger number of nurses per 100 beds, and the lower management fee ratio. Second, the analysis of the differences in the scores of the unmet healthcare needs showed significantly higher scores for regional public hospitals with a larger number of hospitals in a unit area, and a larger number of beds. Third, the analysis of the differences in the scores of the hospital-specialized services showed significantly higher scores for regional public hospitals with a larger location, a higher financial independence of the local government, a larger number of hospitals in a unit area, a larger number of beds, and a larger number of nurses per 100 beds. Major conclusions of this study are as follows. Consideration should be given to the appropriate number of nurses for each regional public hospital to maximize publicness by providing the appropriate amount of medical services, but not to incur unnecessary labor costs. In addition, efforts should be made to enhance profitability, which can be a means of strengthening publicness, by identifying the minimum administrative expenses required for efficient operation and reducing unnecessary administrative expenses. Finally, it is necessary to identify the appropriate number of beds to meet the needs of the customers and to create maximum profits.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.772-782
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• 2014

The aim of the study is to examine the factors affecting publicness and efficiency of the regional public hospitals and specify their relationship, thereby drawing out the policy implications for further improvement of regional hospital management. The analytical results showed the followings. First, there were statistically significant mean differences between the above-the-mean group and the below-the-mean group in terms of the internal and external environmental factors and intensity of competition. Second, When the hospitals were divided into two groups based on the mean value of efficiency, the ratio of material costs, of operational costs, and of doctors, and GRDP per capita of the above-the-mean group and the below-the-mean group showed the significant mean differences. Finally, among the variables of publicness, the ratio of medical aid patients and the number of deliveries had the negative relationships with efficiency whereas the medical costs of medical aid recipients had a positive relationship. The general argument that the government should enlarge its support for the regional hospitals' publicness needs to be specified in terms of the particular components of publicness based on this study. Also, to determine the extent of government support, the further research on the external environmental factors that cannot be controlled by the hospitals, for instance, intensity of competition, GRDP per capita, and fiscal self-reliance, should be encouraged.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.295-306
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• 2015

This study aims to examine the performance of public municipal hospitals through the analysis of data envelopment analysis, efficiency, profitability, and publicness by using panel data during period from 2006 to 2010. The main findings of the study are as follows. First, as a result of efficiency analysis during the period from 2006 to 2010, it was revealed that the number of staff by each job category, labor cost ratio, the number of operating beds need to be decreased. Second, the performance data represented by the indicators of efficiency, profitability and publicness were complementary and showed a tendency of being increased or decreased in same direction. Third, from the result of panel analysis, the efficiency was mainly influenced by the structural factors, while the profitability was influenced by managerial factors, and the publicness by medical environment. In conclusion, in order to enhance the performance of public municipal hospitals in Korea, it is important to harmonize the effort for efficiency, financial and policy support by central and local government, and the continuous participation of community residents.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.280-291
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• 2021

Background: Based on the fact that the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency is a public institution established by social demands for medical disputes, this study reviews the publicness of public organization and discusses its policy implications. Methods: Through Moore's strategic triangle, which consists of legitimacy and support, public value and operational capacity, the process of creating public value is examined. For the analysis, case studies were conducted using related literature data from 2012, when the agency was established, to the present. Results: As a result of the analysis, first, the related law examined in the operational capability has been revised dozens of times, but the revised law has its own contradictions and limitations. The human resource system is also being improved, but there is a problem with the fairness and reliability of the arbitration process, especially due to the limitations of the appraiser system. Second, in terms of legitimacy and support, a regional gap occurred despite efforts to improve accessibility through the expansion of the organization. And the arbitration agency failed to reconcile conflicts caused by stakeholders' perception of each other as a trade-off relationship. Third, the public value result shows that, despite many explicit (statistical) achievements, citizens' use of the past dispute resolution means (litigation) has not decreased. Likewise, the perception of value makers (citizens) is important for creating public value as an invisible result, but it has not yet been formally investigated, so the performance can not be recognized. Conclusion: While the organization's efforts for continuous change and improvement are encouraging, it is not perceived as a better means of resolving disputes and improving quality of services. Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider the institutional design centered on value creators.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.249-255
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• 2020

This study is to analyze the relations between management performance and publicness of national university hospitals. The data from 2015 to 2017 were collected from annual reports and balancing accounts in 13 national university hospitals. The results of the study were as follows. Publicness index was found to have a negative(-) effect on net profit to gross revenues, operating margin. Medical social work had a significant positive(+) effect on normal profit to gross revenues, net profit to gross revenues. According to the location of the hospitals, it was found to have a significant effect on the normal profit to gross revenues. It is necessary to evaluate different projects of national university hospital in the public sectors. Based on this, it is necessary to re-establish the role for the purpose of establishment.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.63-70
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• 2016