In the traditional medical field, the patient was a person to receive protection from the doctor because there are vertical relationship between the patient and the doctor. But in modern medical field, patients change their role to health-care consumer to be guaranteed their rights more actively. This study compare patient's rights in doctor's vocational ethics and patient's rights in law, consumer rights. This study analyzes what is type of law-relationship between patients and doctor and how can they act health-care as health-care consumer.
Ethics ; Humans ; Jurisprudence ; Patient Rights*

Health policy is the governmental decision contained with the objectives to achieve the desirable health and the tools to achieve them. The academic journal in health policy could be involved in all stages of the health policy process–agenda setting, policy making, policy implementing, and policy evaluating. ‘Health Policy and Management’ has been undertaking the role of an academic society in health policy. ‘Health Policy and Management’ will strengthen its role in health policy.
Health Policy* ; Mortuary Practice ; Policy Making

BACKGROUND: The purposes of this study is to analysis the differences of the job satisfaction between regular and non-regular workers in hospitals. METHODS: The samples used for data analysis are 632 workers of 6 hospitals using a standardized questionnaires in B, C, D, and G provinces. In research methodology, all the data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson's correlation, and multiple linear regression analysis. RESULTS: In case of regular workers, communication, working conditions and employee benefit, and education were found to have a significant positive (+) effect on job satisfaction. In case of non-regular workers, empowerment, reward systems, communication, working conditions, and employee benefit had a significant positive (+) effect on job satisfaction. CONCLUSION: These results showed that hospitals needed to reinforce communication, working conditions and employee benefit to regular and non-regular workers in order to improve job satisfaction. Especially, more empowerment, working conditions, and employee benefit should be given to non-regular workers.
Education ; Job Satisfaction* ; Linear Models ; Power (Psychology) ; Research Design ; Reward ; Statistics as Topic

BACKGROUND: Antibiotic resistance has been becoming serious challenge to human beings. Overuse of antibiotics, especially, for infants is concerned, but studies are very few for the prescribing pattern of antibiotic use for infants. This study analyzes prescribing patterns of antibiotics in outpatients of preschool children with acute respiratory tract infections in South Korea. METHODS: Data are used from 2011 Health Insurance Review & Assessment Services-pediatric patients sample. Inclusion criteria is outpatient children (0 to 5 years) with top five frequent diseases. Prescription rates are analyzed by types of disease, provider, specialty, region, and ages. Binary or multinomial logit models are used to analyze determinants of providers' prescription pattern. RESULTS: The main findings are as follows. First, distributions of prescription rates are shown as L-shape or M-shape depending on the types of disease. Second, the prescription variation is so large among providers, where providers are polarized as a group with low prescription rates and the other group with high prescription rates, though the shapes are shown diversified across types of disease. Third, prescription rates appear to be lower in pediatrics and higher in ENT (ear-nose-throat). Fourth, broad spectrum antibiotics are widely used among children. Finally, the logit analysis shows similar results with descriptive statistics, but partly different results across types of disease. CONCLUSION: Antibiotics for respiratory tract infections of infants are used excessively with a large variation among providers, and especially broad spectrum antibiotics are used. The prescription guideline for antibiotics should be provided for each specific disease to reduce antibiotic resistance in the future.
Anti-Bacterial Agents ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Drug Resistance, Microbial ; Humans ; Infant* ; Insurance, Health ; Korea ; Logistic Models ; Outpatients* ; Pediatrics ; Prescriptions* ; Respiratory System* ; Respiratory Tract Infections*

In most democratic countries, influential professional interest groups often become a part of the iron triangle in the policy making process. One of the typical methods by which professional interest groups participate in policy making process is by having interest group members in the national assembly, who is also sympathetic to the group, implement policies through legislation. In this study we found that from the Constitutional National Assembly to the 18th National Assembly, 147 members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea have been former health care professionals. The research analyzed the roles of these members in health care law amendments as requested by the professional organizations. This study analyzed 11 major cases that involved nullification or amendment of legislations in favor of the healthcare profession, against the basic policies of the government. The study showed that in the 11 major cases, policies were amended in the direction intended by the National Assembly members and other organizations with similar interests, which was against the policy stance of the government. However, these cases did not unilaterally imply that the National Assembly has been captured by the interest groups through the legislators with health care professional background; rather, they should be perceived to be influenced by the exhibited loss of governability by the government in respect to healthcare policy decisions, loss of initiative due to lack of controllability, and reversals and inconsistencies of the policies.
Delivery of Health Care* ; Iron ; Jurisprudence ; Policy Making* ; Public Opinion ; Republic of Korea ; Societies

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.
Hospitals, Municipal* ; Korea ; Local Government

BACKGROUND: Suicide is one of important health problems in Korea. Previous studies showed factors associated with suicide in individual levels. However, suicide was influenced by society that individuals belong to, so it was required to analyze suicide in local levels. The purpose of this study was to analyze the regional disparities of suicide mortality by gender and the association between local characteristics and suicide mortality. METHODS: This study included 229 city.county.district administrative districts in Korea. Age- and sex-standardized suicide mortality and age-standardized suicide mortality (male/female) were used as dependent variables. City.county.district types, socio-demographics (number of divorces per 1,000 population, number of marriages per 1,000 population, and single households), financial variable (financial independence), welfare variable (welfare budget), and health behavior/status (perceived health status scores and EuroQol-5 dimension [EQ-5D]) were used to represent the local characteristics. We used hot-spot analysis to identify the spatial patterns of suicide mortality and negative binomial regression analysis to examine factors affecting suicide mortality. RESULTS: There were differences in distribution of suicide mortality and hot-spot regions of suicide mortality by gender. Negative binomial regression analysis provided that city.county.district types (city), number of divorces per 1,000 population, financial independence, and EQ-5D had significant influences on the age- and sex-standardized suicide mortality per 100,000. Factor influencing suicide mortality was the number of divorces per 1,000 population in both male and female. CONCLUSION: Study results provided evidences that suicide mortality among regions was differed by gender. Health policy makers will need to consider gender and local characteristics when making policies for suicides.
Divorce ; Female ; Health Policy ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Marriage ; Mortality* ; Spatial Analysis ; Suicide*

The aim of this study was to investigate the current and trend of healthcare status of South Korea compared to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. We used the position value for relative comparison (PARC) method for measuring the healthcare status of South Korea by five parts of healthcare policy (demand, supply, accessibility, quality, and cost). Additionally, we conducted Mann-Kendall test for analyzing the trend of PARC from 2000 to the present. Demand, supply, accessibility, and quality of healthcare of Korea were located upon the average of OECD countries, and showed an increasing trend from 2000 to the present. However, primary care and screening for cervical cancer were placed at a lower level compared the OECD average. In conclusion, the current state of healthcare in Korea seems to be generally beyond the average among OECD countries. However, some parts, including primary care, need to be improved.
Delivery of Health Care* ; Korea* ; Mass Screening ; Methods ; Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development ; Primary Health Care ; Quality of Health Care ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms

Catastrophic healthcare expenditure refers to out-of-pocket spending for healthcare exceeding a certain proportion of a household's income and can lead to subsequent impoverishment. The aim of this study was to investigate the proportion of South Korean households that experienced catastrophic healthcare expenditure between 2006 and 2015 using available data from the Korea Health Panel, National Survey of Tax and Benefit, and Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Frequencies and trend tests were conducted to analyze the proportion of households with catastrophic healthcare expenditure. Subgroup analysis was performed based on income level. The results of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey revealed that around 2.88% of households experienced catastrophic healthcare expenditure in 2015 and that this proportion was highest in the low income group. Results also showed a statistically significant increasing trend in the number of households with catastrophic healthcare expenditure (annual percentage change=0.92%, p-value <0.0001). Therefore, the findings infer a need to strengthen public health care financing and to particularly monitor catastrophic healthcare expenditure in the low income group.
Delivery of Health Care ; Family Characteristics ; Health Expenditures* ; Korea* ; Public Health ; Taxes

The proportion of people who reported unmet healthcare needs is an important indicator to measure the access problem in healthcare service. To examine current status and trends of unmet needs in Korea, we used data from four sources: the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHNES, ‘2007–2015); the Community Health Survey (CHS ‘2008–2015); the Korea Health Panel Survey (KHP ‘2011–2013); the Korean Welfare Panel Study (KOWEPS ‘2006–2015). The proportion of individual reporting unmet healthcare needs as of 2015 was 12.6% (KNHNES), 11.7% (CHS), and 16.3% (KHP, as of 2013). Annual percent change which characterizes trend for follow-up period was -9.4%, -3.4%, and 7.6%, respectively. The proportion of individual reporting unmet healthcare needs due to cost was 2.8% (KNHNES), 1.7% (CHS), and 4.6% (KHP). The proportion of household reporting unmet healthcare needs due to cost was 1.2% (KOWEPS). Annual percent change was -9.0%, -14.9%, 9.4%, and -18.2%, respectively. Low income population reported about 5 times more unmet needs than high income population. Therefore for decreasing the unmet healthcare needs, strategies focusing on low income population were needed.
Delivery of Health Care* ; Family Characteristics ; Follow-Up Studies ; Health Surveys ; Korea* ; Nutrition Surveys ; Population Growth ; Poverty ; Socioeconomic Factors