• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.149-173
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• 2016

As cloud computing becomes more and more popular and ubiquitous, many organizations are deciding to move their whole information infrastructure to the cloud. The healthcare industry is one of those that is beginning to utilize cloud-based solutions en masse. Cloud based computing and storage offers numerous benefits including scalability, cost efficiency, and accessibility, which in turn have the potential to streamline hospital operations. Despite the potential benefits of acquiring this system, considerations must still be given to the migration of the massive amounts of personal and highly protected data to a cloud-based solution. Health care organizations must consider all matters of security, reliability, and availability, to ensure that patients' data remains compliant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant. This paper will examine the benefits and challenges of such operation to determine the best practices for the utilization of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) cloud based networking and storage for small to mid-sized hospitals.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.158-166
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• 2022

Background: The effects of radiation on the health of radiation workers who are constantly susceptible to occupational exposure must be assessed based on an accurate and reliable reconstruction of organ-absorbed doses that can be calculated using personal dosimeter readings measured as H_p(10) and dose conversion coefficients. However, the data used in the dose reconstruction contain significant biases arising from the lack of reality and could result in an inaccurate measure of organ-absorbed doses. Therefore, this study quantified the biases involved in organ dose reconstruction and calculated the bias-corrected H_p(10)-to-organ-absorbed dose coefficients for the use in epidemiological studies of Korean radiation workers. Materials and Methods: Two major biases were considered: (a) the bias in H_p(10) arising from the difference between the dosimeter calibration geometry and the actual exposure geometry, and (b) the bias in air kerma-to-H_p(10) conversion coefficients resulting from geometric differences between the human body and slab phantom. The biases were quantified by implementing personal dosimeters on the slab and human phantoms coupled with a Monte Carlo method and considered to calculate the bias-corrected H_p(10)-to-organ-absorbed dose conversion coefficients. Results and Discussion: The bias in H_p(10) was significant for large incident angles and low energies (e.g., 0.32 for right lateral at 218 keV), whereas the bias in dose coefficients was significant for the posteroanterior (PA) geometry only (e.g., 0.79 at 218 keV). The bias-corrected H_p(10)-to-organ-absorbed dose conversion coefficients derived in this study were up to 3.09- fold greater than those from the International Commission on Radiological Protection publications without considering the biases. Conclusion: The obtained results will aid future studies in assessing the health effects of occupational exposure of Korean radiation workers. The bias-corrected dose coefficients of this study can be used to calculate organ doses for Korean radiation workers based on personal dose records.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.877-898
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• 2018

Purpose: This study empirically examines the effect of Communication Privacy Management(CPM) factors and Privacy Calculus factors to the intention to disclose Personal Health Information(PHI) in the context of healthcare ecosystem. Also, it investigates the moderating effects of CPM factors in the relationship between privacy calculus variables and the intention to disclose PHI. Methods: We conducted scenario-based repeated-measures quasiexperiment and used total 364 samples for analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis and repeated-measure ANOVA were employed using SPSS 24.0. Results: All CPM factors, such as type of information, requesting purpose, and requesting stakeholder, directly influence to the intention to disclose PHI, whereas only the medium trust out of the Privacy Calculus factors has direct influence on the intention to disclose PHI. With regard to the moderating effects, the requesting stakeholder is the most influential and the information type is the least influential construct. Conclusion: The findings suggest that healthcare system should be designed to provide more definite and personalized benefits to customers to enhance social and individual benefits by getting more participation from customers. Also, it is desirable that the requesting stakeholder of PHI would be non-profit organizations such as hospital, government or public agencies to secure more willingness of PHI from people. Furthermore, it is implied that extensive information gathering and utilization, instead of excluding sensitive information or critical patients' records, is recommended which is substantial to invigorate the healthcare industry.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.1103-1113
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• 2020

Hospitals store and manage personal and health information through the electronic medical record (EMR). However, vulnerabilities and threats are increasing with the provision of various services for information sharing in hospitals. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a model to prevent personal information leakage due to the transmission of patient information in EMR. A method for granting permission to securely receive and transmit patient information from hospitals where patient medical records are stored is proposed using OAuth authorization tokens. A protocol was proposed to enable secure information delivery by applying and delivering the record access restrictions desired by the patient to the OAuth Token. OAuth Delegation Token can be delivered by writing the authority, scope, and time of destruction to view patient information.This prevents the illegal collection of patient information and prevents the leakage of personal information that may occur during the delivery process.

• Convergence Security Journal
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.151-163
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• 2019

As smart devices and communication technologies have developed rapidly, the healthcare industry in the globe is seeing remarkable issues on medical security. At the same time, personal medical records are being shared in the network, which would raise the risk of information security. This thesis aims to develop the curriculum to raise the awareness of information security among workers in medical institutions by referring to NCS(National Competency Standards) International standards, medical institutions' requirements and educational institutions' curriculums on information security based on proven results from medical devices and systems introduced in the public health centers, territorial branches, community health posts and primary, secondary, tertiary hospitals. Thus, this thesis offers the method to improve information security in healthcare institutions through validation testing conducted by medical practitioners and ICT experts.

• The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.114-134
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• 2017

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the changes of women's postpartum symptoms, including their weights, edema index and quality of life (QOL) over the first six weeks after childbirth. Methods: The study participants were 31 postpartum women treated in the Dept. of Obstetrics & Gynecology, at Woo-Suk University Korean Medicine Hospital, from May 20th to August 5th, 2016. In the first 2 weeks of the postpartum period, the main data collection method was to interview each patient and write down all of their complaints, and additionally referring to each participant's PHR (Personal Health Records). At the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th week, the researcher interviewed participants by phone once a week. The participants' weight, edema index (ECW/TBW) and the quality of life (by EQ-VAS) were measured at 1st and 2nd week after childbirth. And, EQ-VAS was assessed once more at the 6th week after childbirth. As a last step, the participants responded to a survey on satisfaction regarding their postpartum care with Korean Medicine. Results: 1. In the 1st one week after childbirth, edema was the most frequent complaint. It was about joint pain of the upper limbs in the 2nd and 3rd weeks, sweating in the 4th week, and joint pain of the upper limbs in the 5th and the 6th weeks. 2. In the 1st two weeks of the postpartum period, the weight of the participants decreased from $66.33{\pm}9.30kg$ to $62.60{\pm}8.92kg$ (p<0.001) and the edema index ECW/TBW decreased from $0.399{\pm}0.010$ to $0.385{\pm}0.0 4$ (p<0.001). The EQ-VAS significantly improved from $61.77{\pm}17.72$ to $73.51{\pm}14.67$ (p<0.001). In the last 4-weeks of the postpartum period, the EQ-VAS decreased from $74.30{\pm}14.25$ to $73.63{\pm}13.35$, but this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.749). 3. Regarding the satisfaction with postpartum care with Korean Medicine, 60% of the participants responded that it was 'Excellent' and 40% said it was 'Good'. Conclusion: Over the entire postpartum period, the most frequent complaints were about musculoskeletal symptoms. Postpartum care with Korean Medicine treatments in the early postpartum period improves various postpartum symptoms and the quality of life for postpartum women.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.300-308
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• 2019

Objectives: This research was conducted to identify the consumers' food choice factors that affect the consumers' replacement of soft drinks with carbonated water. Methods: The present study used secondary data from a consumer panel survey conducted by the Rural Development Administration of Korea, and the data included the panel members' purchase records based on their monthly spending receipts. The survey asked the participants about their food choice factors and their personal responsibility for their health. This survey included independent variables for the consumers' food purchase factors. As a dependent variable, two types of groups were defined. The replacement group included those people who increased their purchase of carbonated water and decreased their purchase of soft drinks. The non-replacement group included those people who did not change their purchase patterns or they increased their purchase of soft drinks and they decreased their purchase of carbonated water. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine the consumers' food choice factors that were associated with replacing soft drinks with carbonated water. Results: The replacement group was significantly associated with (1) a younger age (OR=0.953), (2) being a housewife (OR=2.03), (3) higher income (OR=1.001) and (4) less concern about price (OR=0.819) when purchasing food. This group also showed (5) higher enjoyment (OR=1.328) when choosing food and (6) they took greater responsibly for their personal health (OR=1.233). Conclusions: This research is the first study to mainly focus on soft drinks and carbonated water. The result of this research showed that young, health-conscious consumers with a higher income and who are more interested in food have more possibilities to replace soft drinks with carbonated water. These research findings may be applied to consumers who have characteristics that are similar to the young health-conscious consumers and the results can help to suggest ways to reduce sugar intake and improve public health. However, this research has a limitation due to the application of secondary data. Therefore, a future study is needed to develop detailed survey questions about food choice factors and to extend these factors to all beverages, including soft drinks made with sugar substitutes, so as to reflect the growth of alternative industries that use artificial sweeteners or different types of sugar to make commercially available drinks.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.38-44
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• 2005

Objective : To compare the mortality rate of Korean medical doctors to that of the general Korean population for the period 1992-2002. Methods : The membership records of the Korean Medical Association were linked to the 1992-2002 death certificate data of Korea s National Statistical Office using 13-digit unique personal identification numbers. The study population consisted of 61,164 medical doctors with a follow-up period of 473,932 person-years. Standardized mortality ratios(SMRs) were calculated to compare cause-specific mortality rates of medical doctors to those of the general population. Results : We confirmed 1,150 deaths at ages from 30 to 75 years from 1 January 1992 to 31 December 2002. The SMR for all-cause of death was 0.47(95% CI : $0.44{\sim}0.50$). The SMRs for smoking-related diseases such as cerebrovascular accidents and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were smaller than the SMR of all-cause of death. However, the SMRs for colorectal and pancreatic cancers were not significantly lower than those of the general population. Transport accidents and suicides accounted for 72% (94 of 131) of external causes of death. The SMR for suicide was 0.51 (95% CI : $0.38{\sim}0.68$). Conclusions : The mortality rate of South Korean medical doctors was less than 50% that of the general population of South Korea. Cause-specific analysis showed that mortality rates in leading causes of death were lower among medical doctors although differences in mortality rates between medical doctors and the general population varied with the causes of death. These health benefits found among medical doctors may be attributable to the lower level of health damaging behaviors (e.g., lower smoking rates) and better working conditions.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.181-186
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• 2024

Background: This study aimed to analyze the trend of occupational noise-induced hearing loss (ONIHL) in Brazilian workers at a metallurgical plant with a hearing conservation program (HCP), which has been addressed in a previous study. Methods: All 152 workers in this time series (20032018) participated in the HCP and used personal protective equipment. All annual audiometry records in the company's software were collected from the electronic database. The trend of ONIHL was analyzed with the joinpoint regression model. The hearing thresholds of ONIHL cases at the end of the series were compared with those found in a national reference study. Results: The binaural mean hearing thresholds at 3, 4, and 6 kHz at the end of the series were higher for ages ≥50 years, exposures ≥85 dB (A), time since admission >20 years, and maintenance workers. Significance was found only in the group divided by age. There was an increasing time trend of ONIHL, though with a low percentage variation for the period (AAPC = 3.5%; p = 0.01). Hearing thresholds in this study differed from the reference one. Conclusion: Despite the unmet expectation of a stationary trend in the study period, the time pace of ONIHL evolution did not follow what was expected for a population exposed to noise. These findings signal to the scientific community and public authorities that good ONIHL control is possible when HCP is well implemented.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.499-512
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• 2000

The number of deliveries by cesarean section has increased internationally. However, The cesarean section rate is different by country to country. It is because each country has different social and cultural background and. practices its unique delivery policies. Hence, it is very important to understand the uniqueness that one country faces related with the cesarean section. In Korea, there have been many researches on the clinical. maternal. hospital and community factors and so on. However, few studies have attempted to reveal the physician factors in Korea because it is difficult to approach hospital records. So, in this study, the physician factors that influence the increase of cesarean section rate in Korea was investigated, and preliminary research agenda for policy establishment to keep the cesarean section rate from excessive increase was provided. In this study, all 2744 cesarean section deliveries performed by 36 physicians at the hospital was considered. and detailed delivery records of 12 months selected randomly from January 1996 to August 1998 was reviewed retrospectively. Chi-square analysis is used to examine the homogeneity of distribution of maternal, fetal, and clinical factors. In addition, multiple regression analysis is used to examine the effect of physician characteristics on the cesarean section rate. Physician characteristics as independent variable and the cesarean section rate as dependent variable was put in this analysis. Follows are the results of this study. 1) Total cesarean section rate is 34.8%. primary cesarean section rate is 12.5 % and repeated cesarean section rate is 22.3 %. Among the indications for the primary cesarean section, 15.6 % is for breech presentation. 40.2 % is for dystocia. 7.6 % is for fetal distress. and 36.6 % is for others. 2) There is positive correlation between physician's age and the cesarean section rate (p<0.001). And statistically significant correlation is found between the physician's educational attainment and the cesarean section rate (p<0.001). A physician with Ph.D degree has lower cesarean section rate than a physician with B.A only and M.A. degree (p<0.001). However. physician's gender, location of graduated university. position at the hospital, and the religious belief were not shown statistically significant relations with the cesarean section rate. 3) Among all cesarean sections in this study, only 15.4 % is performed during weekend. While 18.2 % is performed on monday only. This suggests that physicians may not prefer weekend operation of cesarean section. In addition, 86.1 % among all cesarean section operations is performed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. So the cesarean section rate could be related with a day of the week and a time of the day. From this results. there is a possibility that the physicians' personal comfort may influence the cesarean section rate.