• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.19-40
• /
• 2002

The purpose of this study is to find out if there has been any change in the outpatient visit to tertiary care hospitals after the introduction of the new healthcare program that divides the roles of doctors and pharmacists and the reason for the change if there is any. Two tertiary care hospitals with the largest capacity of 1200 beds and two tertiary care hospitals with the lowest capacity of 600-700 beds were randomly selected. Data of the outpatient visits from March-May 2(xx), before the new healthcare system was adopted, were compared with the data from March-May 2001, after the new policy was adopted. Outpatient visits have decreased 5.8% after the new system. There has been a dramatic decrease, especially, in the department of OB-GYN and Pediatrics of tertiary hospitals. Decrease in re-visits is much higher than the first visits. Female patients decreased more than the male patients. Outpatient visits by economically active patients group aged 25-44 declined much. Tertiary hospitals in Seoul and Kyonggi Province, as well. Outpatient income of tertiary hospitals has dropped up to 14.7% due to the decline in outpatient visits and pharmaceutical income, and resell price system which in turn has caused the hospital financial deficits. While the new program has succeeded in lowering the use of antibiotics and injections, it has the pitfall of prescribing long days and expensive drugs. A full-fledged review of the system should be conducted for the establishment of the new system and I believe this study may be a useful references. Furthermore, more profound and overall studies on the chance in the patients use of hospitals are needed.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.254-260
• /
• 2014

Background: The purpose of this study is to assume appropriate outpatient consultation time for each clinical department on the basis of measured outpatient consultation time and satisfaction of outpatient. Methods: We surveyed the feeling and satisfactory outpatient consultation time, satisfaction, revisiting intention and recommendation to others to 1,105 patients of single general hospital in Gyeonggi-do and measured their real outpatient consultation time from October 28 to November 27 in 2013. On the basis of satisfaction, we estimated appropriate outpatient consultation time through area under the receiver operating characteristic curve in logistic regression model. Results: Feeling outpatient consultation time was 5.1 minutess, satisfactory outpatient consultation time which was suggested by patient was 6.3 minutes, and real outpatient consultation time was 4.2 minutes. Department which had longest real outpatient consultation time was infection (7 minutes) and department which had longest satisfactory outpatient consultation time was neurology (9.4 minutes). From the univariate and the multiple linear regression analysis, real outpatient consultation time was longer in pulmonology patient, new patient and afternoon patient, satisfactory outpatient consultation time was longer in infection, neurology, neuropsychiatry, neurosurgery, and rehabilitation patient. Appropriate real outpatient consultation time was suggested as 5.6 minutes which differentiated high and low satisfied patient group. However, we could not assume appropriate outpatient consultation time for each clinical department because the number of patient who had bad satisfaction was too low. Conclusion: To improve patient's satisfaction, we hope outpatient reservation system is operated as each patient's outpatient consultation time is at least 5.6 minutes.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.16-30
• /
• 2004

Background: Although the number of cancer patients increase, the resources for cancer management are not increased. If the outpatient chemotherapy administration room is operated, the shift of patients from inpatient 10 outpatient is occurred. So the capacities for chemotherapy increased and the shifted rooms were occupied with new non-chemotherapy patients. The income of the hospital increased. The purpose of this study was to assess usefulness and cost-effectiveness of the outpatient-chemotherapy adminstration model. Method: There are six beds, two chairs and two nurses and one personnel in the outpatient chemotherapy room. The satisfaction study by patients/family and doctors and the cost analysis over 12 months, by comparing costs of chemotherapy administration at outpatient chemotherapy room with inpatient at ward and inpatient-nonchemotherapy at ward were done. Results: The 97.1 percent of patients/family and the 94.4 percent of doctor who involved chemotherapy were satisfied with outpatient chemotherapy administration. The 91.7% of doctors said there were no differences in treatment outcome between outpatient and inpatient chemotherapy administration. The average number of patients in outpatient chemotherapy room increased from 10.7 to 15.4 but in inpatient from 19.4 to 18.3. The average number of inpatient chemotherapy were not changed related to increase of the average number of outpatient chemotherapy. The profit between outpatient chemotherapy and inpatient chemotherapy administration was 45,344,710 won and the profit between outpatient chemotherapy and non chemotherapy treatment was -185,294,614 won. Conclusion: The outpatient chemotherapy administration model is good for patients/family, doctors and hospital partially. But the hypothesis described above was not correct. The process of cancer patients treatment were from diagnosis and treatment to first administration of chemotherapy. So the shift from inpatient to outpatient was not occurred. In economic aspect, the profit between outpatient chemotherapy and non chemotherapy treatment was in the red. As the level of health care fees was so low, the hospitals hesitate operating the room of outpatient chemotherapy. It is necessary to raise the level of health case fees for outpatient chemotherapy administration.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.262-276
• /
• 2019

Background: The most important thing to strengthen primary care is to prove that the continuity of primary care is an essential area for good health outcomes. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of outpatient continuity of primary care on the hospitalization experience of diabetes mellitus in new diabetic patients. Methods: Using the Korean National Health Insurance Service national sample cohort (NHIS-NSC 2011-2015) data, 3,391 new diabetic patients in 2012 were selected for the study. Multiple logistic regression was performed to investigate the effect of outpatient continuity of primary care on hospitalization in new diabetic patients. Results: The outpatient continuity of primary care in new diabetic patients was measured by the continuity of care index, which showed that 69.4% (n=2,352) were high level and 30.6% (n=1,039) were low level. Patients who had high continuity of primary care at the early stage of diabetes diagnosis showed 3.49 times more likely to maintain high continuity of primary care in the second year (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.72-4.49). Patients with low continuity of primary care for 2 years from the initial diagnosis of diabetes were 2.56 times more likely to be hospitalized due to diabetes than those who did not (95% CI, 1.55-4.25). Conclusion: This study identified the need for policies to increase the continuity of primary care for new diabetic patients and could contribute to lowering the admission rate of diabetic patients if the policy for this would work effectively.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.66-79
• /
• 1992

The code of the International Classification of Disease(ICD) is seriously questioned on its effectiveness in identifing an independent disease entity from similar conditions at general practitioner's offices. This study has attempted to show individual coding variations in ICD for similar ambulatory care conditions. It has been assumed that a following outpatient visit is regarded as the sane kind of visit owing to the same disease if a visit to the different source of care would be mad within an interval of less than two days. The 'D' health insurance association was selected for this analysis. The 'D' association had 153,298 members and made claims of 642,605 outpatient care in 1990. Out of the total outpatient claims, 8.6%(55,102 claims) were counted as the same disease which could meet the above assumption. Percent of conditions classified as the 10 leading causes of frequent visits which were matched accurately to the subsequent ICD diagnostic code found to be 15.8% on the average. The URI was noted for the highest concurrence rate of 20.4%. This proportion was even decreased to 11.6% on the case of chronic disease. Despite the fact that the assumption underlying the definition of the above same disease is rather rough and inappropriate, this study reveals that the code of ICD currently in use has weaknesses in seperating a certain independent disease from similar conditions at the outpatient setting. Thus, efforts need to be elaborated to meet the need of a new system of classification for conditions and diseases encountering at ambulatory care.

• 한국사회복지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2004.10a
• /
• pp.461-492
• /
• 2004

This study examined the effects of gender, parental support and treatment type on the treatment outcome of adolescent substance abusers. Outcome variable was the successful graduation (or drop) from an Intensive Adolescent Outpatient Program. Adolescents with their parents' support were treated in one of three treatment models (2-weeks Inpatient plus 6 week Intensive Croup-Oriented Outpatient, 8-weeks Intensive Croup-Oriented Outpatient, and 8-weeks Individual-Family Therapy) within a private hospital-affiliated treatment center by managed care practice allowing their own choice (non-random natural assignments). Several hypotheses were tested for main effects by the Log-Linear Analyses for a multi-dimensional contingency table with 440 adolescents (284 boys and 156 girls treated during 1992-l997) from middle-class families with private health insurances. The following results were found. Odds of graduating versus dropping out of the treatment program among : (1) girls were 1.7 times higher than those among boys; (2) adolescents with two-parent were 2.2 times higher than those among adolescents with one-parent ; (3) adolescents with Inpatient plus Outpatient was 1.7 times higher than that of those with Outpatient; (4) adolescents with Individual-Family Therapy was 2.3 times higher than that of those with Outpatient Model. There was no statistically significant outcome difference between the Individual-Family Therapy and the Inpatient plus Outpatient. Implications from the results were discussed. Suggestions were made to improve the treatment components in the areas of gender sensitivity, securing more parental support, alternatives for separation from peer group and integrating new peer groups, and flexibility for the unique needs of individual family. Also, some research questions for future studies were suggested.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.53-60
• /
• 2007

Various changes in medical environments including growing elderly population, chronic diseases, deepening competition among hospitals since opening to foreign medical service, economic strategy for improvement of profit system have caused hospitals to be specialized. In this backgrounds, the purpose of this study is to receive basic data for architectural planning on the spatial organization of outpatient department in general hospital. The results of this study were as follows; First, major changes of outpatient department in general hospital are composed of 'co-work in medical examination and treatment', 'decentralization of diagnosis and treatment(D/T)' and 'patient-oriented medical service'. Changes by co-work system include appearance of medical offices for co-work, activation of specialized clinics, grouping of E/T section for outpatient and various types of specialized centers. Second, the grouping of E/T sections means the modification of E/T system and organization in general hospitals, and a new spatial organization will be needed. Third, the types of specialized centers are getting varied. they are classified into several types including disease-resource, social stratum-resource, human organ-resource, health-resource, rehabilitation-resource, alternative medical center and so on.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.123-164
• /
• 2014

Under the new system of 'Separation of pharmaceutical prescription and dispensing' in Korea, which was implemented in 2000, physician could not dispense a medicine, and outpatient should have a physician's prescription filled at a drugstore. After pharmacist makes up outpatient's prescription, National Health Insurance Service(NHIS) pay for outpatient's medicine to pharmacist, except an outpatient's own medicine charge. And NHIS only pay for outpatient's prescription fee to physician and, physician doesn't derive profit from dispensing medicine in itself. Nevertheless, if physician writes out a prescription with violation of 'Criteria for the Medical Care Benefits', NHIS clawed back the payment of outpatient's prescription and medicine from the physician or the medical institution which the physician belongs to. In the past, NHIS's confiscation was in accordance with 'the National Health Care Insurance Act, Article 52, Clause 1'. But, since 2006 when the Supreme Court declared that there was no legal basis on the NHIS's confiscation of outpatient's medicine payment, NHIS had put in a claim for illegal prescriptions on the basis 'the Korean Civil law, Article 750(tort)'. So, Many medical institutions filed civil actions against NHIS. The key point of this actions was whether the issuing outpatient prescriptions with violations of Criteria for the Medical Care Benefits constitute of the law of tort. On this point, the first trial and the second trial took different position. Finally the Supreme Court acknowledged the constitution of the law of tort in 2013. In this paper, the author will review critically the decision of the Supreme Court, and consider the relativeness between the legal effect of Criteria for the Medical Care Benefits and the constitution of the issuing outpatient prescriptions with violations of Criteria for the Medical Care Benefits as the law of tort.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.349-364
• /
• 2011

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between new-building of rural public health centers and the outpatient medical utilization. Methods : The study subjects were 141 public health centers in rural area. The data were collected from 1995 to 2001, medical utilization and local population, healthcare resources, and economic characteristics were included. In order to evaluate new-building effects, we performed paired t-tests and multivariate regression analyses. Results : The following variables are significant affecting the medical utilization of rural public health centers: urban side location of public health centers(p<0.05), pre- and post-IMF economic crisis(p<0.001), number of medical aid recipients(p<0.01), number of private clinics(p<0.05), workers of public health centers(p<0.001), financial independent level of local governments(p<0.001). In contrast, the existence of new-building and number of the aged 65 and over were not significant variables. Conclusions : We could not find out the positive relationship between the existence of new-building and the volume of medical utilization in rural public health centers. In particular the medical utilization of rural public health centers is significantly affected by IMF economic recession and number of the poor strata, the economically depressed area.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.28-40
• /
• 2014

Objectives: Prescriptions for Parkinson's can be dispensed at the outpatient pharmacy. In general, the treatment of Parkinson's disease requires a multitude of drugs, sometimes taken 4 to 6 times a day at specific times as prescribed by the medical practitioner. Said "time-specific therapy" is one of the major reasons of dispensing delay observed at the outpatient pharmacy. Because our establishment lacked a computerized system to support time-specific prescriptions, they were not recognized electronically. They had to be issued and dispensed manually, which required a greater amount of time than the automated process. To solve the problem, a new sig code was developed to handle time-specific prescriptions with a comprehensive automated dispensing system to support it. This study aims to create electronic programs and streamline the process to increase dispensing performance. And thus, ensure greater patient safety and dispensing accuracy within a shorter dispensing time and also increase employee satisfaction through a decreased workload. Methods: After identifying the problems caused by non-electronic prescriptions an automated system that allowed the issuance of time-specific prescriptions was developed. A new sig code was created that could be recognized by the Pharmacy electronic medical program, the label printer to group medications by administration times and the Automatic Tablet Counter(ATC) to count the grouped drugs accordingly. Result: With the new sig code, the practitioner became able to electronically select the times of drug administration while issuing the prescription. This 'time-specific prescription' can now be recognized by the pharmacy electronic medical program, the label printer and the ATC like any other prescription. Conclusion: The developed program started operating on September 2013. Although not all Parkinson's patients have been issued with the new electronic 'time-specific prescription', the overall dispensing process has become more streamlined and accurate. As the medical team continues to integrate the new system in their practice an additional decrease of the dispensing time is predicted. Future program upgrades and other new time-saving approaches are scheduled, which are expected to further increase the service quality of our outpatient pharmacy.