OBJECTIVES: Many healthcare organizations and professionals have had interests in healthcare information and communication technology (ICT). The objective of this study was to investigate the current status of overall healthcare ICT, especially focusing on Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems in Korea. METHODS: This study used a part of the nationwide survey collected for the OECD benchmarking ICT study. The Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service conducted the survey from November 19, 2013 to January 10, 2014. This study followed the methodological guidelines of the OECD. A total of 2,093 hospitals and clinics, including long-term care hospitals, participated in the survey. Among them, 554 hospitals and 906 clinics were included in this study for the generalization of the results. RESULTS: The adoption rates of EMR systems were 96.3% in hospitals and 95.7% in clinics. Most of the hospitals and clinics had high rates of healthcare information exchange (HIE) within the organization; however, there were extremely low HIE rates among external organizations. Most of the hospitals and clinics had EMR systems with clinical-decision-supporting functionalities. Ninety-six percent of the EMR systems of the hospitals and 89.2% of the clinic systems had checking functions, such as alerts or reminders, on contraindications of drug-drug and drug-age interaction. CONCLUSIONS: Korea has maintained a high healthcare ICT status compared to countries in the European Union. The EMR systems of hospitals and clinics in Korea had sophisticated functionalities; however, their HIE status was extremely low, which indicates the need for healthcare ICT standardization.
Benchmarking ; Delivery of Health Care ; Electronic Health Records* ; European Union ; Generalization (Psychology) ; Insurance, Health ; Korea* ; Long-Term Care ; Medical Informatics ; Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development

Background: Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease in livestock that has tremendous economic impact nationally. After multiple FMD outbreaks, the South Korean government implemented a vaccination policy for efficient disease control. However, during active surveillance by quarantine authorities, pig farms have reported an insufficient antibody positivity rate to FMD. Objective: In this study, the spatial and temporal trends of insufficiency among pig farms were analyzed, and the effect of the number of government veterinary officers was explored as a potential preventive factor. Methods: Various data were acquired, including national-level surveillance data for antibody insufficiency from the Korea Animal Health Integrated System, the number of veterinary officers, and the number of local pig farms. Temporal and geographical descriptive analyses were conducted to overview spatial and temporal trends. Additionally, logistic regression models were employed to investigate the association between the number of officers per pig farm with antibody insufficiency. Spatial cluster analysis was conducted to detect spatial clusters. Results: The results showed that the incidence of insufficiency tended to decrease in recent years (odds ratio [OR], 0.803; 95% confidence interval [95% CIs], 0.721–0.893), and regions with a higher density of governmental veterinary officers (OR, 0.942; 95% CIs, 0.918–0.965) were associated with a lower incidence. Conclusions This study implies that previously conducted national interventions would be effective, and the quality of government-provided veterinary care could play an important role in addressing the insufficient positivity rate of antibodies.