The Big Data Research Committee of the Korean Society of Gastroenterology conducted activities and researches with three goals. First, it provides the basis for proper and cost-effective treatment of digestive diseases in Korea. Second, it carries out population-level global research by establishing a system of big data analysis related to gastroenterology. Third, it provides the members of the Korean Society of Gastroenterology with the opportunity to plan and assess the public interest related to big data. The studies published by the committee members in this paper were carried out under these objectives, and the findings are believed to have achieved the public interest goals that may be helpful in the current medical and health policy. The construction of the big data infrastructure for digestive drugs is also underway, and we expect to see meaningful results pertaining to important digestive drugs. Research using public health medical big data, such as the National Health Insurance Corporation data base, should ultimately provide a basis for reflecting public messages and policies for the public. To this end, it is necessary for Korean researchers to lead efforts to lower the barriers and to approach relevant information and opportunities using big data research.
Committee Membership ; Gastroenterology ; Health Policy ; Korea ; National Health Programs ; Public Health ; Statistics as Topic

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to compare scaling rates in 16 cities and provinces using data from the Community Health Survey (CHS) and National Health Insurance Service (NHIS). METHODS: This study involved cross-sectional secondary data analysis. A total of 16,646,190 subjects who participated in the CHS and 218,184 subjects in the NHIS were included in the final analysis. The dependent variable was the scaling rate, and the independent variables were sex, age, and 16 regions. The study included individuals aged 19 years or older who received scaling between August 2014 and August 2015 in the past year in the CHS and codes U2232 (scaling) and U2233 (scaling before periodontal treatment) in the NHIS. The total scaling rates were compared between the CHS and NHIS. The differences in scaling rates according to sex, age, and 16 regions were analyzed. RESULTS: The CHS (42.6%) scaling rates were 17.5% higher than the NHIS (25.1%) scaling rates in 16 regions in 2015. The median in the CHS data was in Busan (41.5%), while that in the NHIS data was in Jeonbuk (23.5%). There was no significant difference between scaling rates above and below the median region in the CHS and NHIS. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggested that CHS data, which show a higher rate, should be used to assess and monitor the dental needs of community residents. NHIS data should be used to evaluate community oral health projects. It is necessary to develop health indicators for the community oral health project of input, process, and outcome evaluation.
Busan ; Dental Scaling ; Health Surveys ; Jeollabuk-do ; National Health Programs ; Oral Health ; Statistics as Topic

This study examines how the decision-making process evolved in Korea during the initial phases of introduction and implementation of National Health Insurance. This study analyses the official documents and interviews views made with government officials and related personnel. We used the method of network analysis and multidimensional scaling in order to demonstrate how the major participants in the decision-making process developed and changed under the contemporary political situations. In the pre-implementation stage around 1976, major concerns were concentrated around the issues of financial support for social insurance, the fee schedule and who ought to be covered first. The total number of participants of the health or health-related organization was 61, which included the President, the Minister of Health and Social Affairs, representatives of special interest groups, etc. In the actual implementation period of 1982, different issues were brought up by the major participants. The number of participants in this period declined to 44 with the deletion of 19 and with the addition of two newly formed health insurance organizations. By 1988, as the implementation reached its final decision period, disagreements were centered on progressive premium rating and the administration of National Health Insurance. The number of participants increased to 60 after the addition of 16 participants. The analysis of this paper may provide some insight for other countries which wish to establish National Health Insurance; as reference to the policy-making process, it may provide some suggestions for when to initiate and how to formulate National Health Insurance policies.
Human ; Korea ; National Health Programs/*legislation & jurisprudence ; *Policy Making ; Statistics ; Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

China ; Humans ; National Health Programs ; standards ; statistics & numerical data ; United Kingdom

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Sinus surgery has been reported to improve pulmonary function and decrease the use of asthma medications in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis and asthma. Most studies, however, have used a small number of patients and were conducted over a short period. To demonstrate a causal relationship between sinus surgery and asthma, a sufficient amount of patient data observed over a long period is required. To address the limitations of the existing approaches, we conducted a preliminary methodological study for large-scale data analysis using data from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) to suggest a basis for the effect of sinus surgery on asthma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data from NHIS consisted of unidentified medical histories of a sample cohort representing the whole nation over a period of nine years. We selected the following types of study samples: 1) patients with surgical codes for sinus surgery; 2) patients with disease codes for sinusitis; 3) patients with disease codes for asthma; and 4) patients with medication codes for asthma treatment. RESULTS: In this study, we applied a methodology for selection of subjects from big data to investigate the effect of sinus surgery on improving asthma in the future. We could include 152 subjects after the four-stage selection method from 1,025,340 patients. CONCLUSION: We could establish a method to select patients with history of sinus surgery and asthma treatment from a big data. This methodology using big data may contribute to identify relationship between sinus surgery and asthma treatment in the future.
Asthma* ; Cohort Studies ; Humans ; Methods ; National Health Programs* ; Patient Selection ; Sinusitis ; Statistics as Topic*

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate the public's perception of reimbursement for the education and counseling services provided to advanced practice nurses in intensive care units.METHOD: This was a secondary data analysis study. The original data were collected utilizing an online panel. The sample comprised 615 individuals aged between 19 and 49 years nationwide. The study variables included the public's perception of reimbursement for education and counseling services, age, gender, education level, income, and health status. Variables such as past experience of being admitted to an intensive care unit by self, family, or relatives and the recognition of advanced practice nurses were also examined.RESULTS: The mean of the perception score was 3.15 on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Among the participants, 89.2% answered “somewhat agreed” or “strongly agreed” to the question about the education and counseling services being covered by the National Health Insurance. Moreover, education level, past experience of being admitted to an intensive care unit by self, family, or relatives, and recognition of advanced practice nurses were significantly associated with the perception score.CONCLUSION: Efforts should be made to publicize the need for the education and counseling services that are provided to advanced practice nurses in intensive care units.
Counseling ; Critical Care ; Education ; Humans ; Intensive Care Units ; Methods ; National Health Programs ; Statistics as Topic

BACKGROUND: This study addressed town-level mortality rates using the National Health Information Database (NHID) of the National Health Insurance Service in Korea in comparison with those derived from the National Administrative Data (NAD) of the Ministry of Interior and Safety. METHODS: We employed the NHID and NAD between 2014 and 2017. We compared the numbers of population and deaths at the national level between these two data sets. We also compared the distribution of the town-level numbers of population and deaths of the two data sets. Correlation analyses were performed to investigate the relation between the NHID and NAD in the town-level numbers of population and deaths, crude mortality rate, and standardized mortality ratio (SMR). RESULTS: The numbers of population and deaths in the NHID were almost identical to those in the NAD, regardless of gender. The distribution of the town-level numbers of population and deaths was also similar between the two data sets during the entire study period. Throughout the study period, the Pearson correlation coefficients between the two databases for the town-level numbers of population and deaths and the crude mortality rate were 0.996 or over. The correlation coefficients for the SMR ranged from 0.937 to 0.972. CONCLUSION: Town-level mortality showed significant correlation and concordance between the NHID and NAD. This result highlights the possibility of producing future analyses of town-level health-related indicators in Korea, including the mortality rate, using the NHID.
Dataset ; Korea ; Mortality ; NAD ; National Health Programs ; Republic of Korea ; Statistics as Topic

Since the first laparoscopic bariatric surgery in Korea introduced in January 2003, the number of metabolic and bariatric surgery has been steadily increasing. According to the report from National Health Insurance big data analysis, the prevalence of morbid and super obesity has greatly increased and metabolic and bariatric surgery also increased in the last 10 years. As the incidence of morbid obesity is more frequent in people of poor socioeconomic status, the need for a reimbursement by the government seemed to be necessary. Finally, the national health insurance system decided to financially cover metabolic and bariatric surgery from January 2019. In order to improve the safety and qualify of metabolic and bariatric surgery, the Korean Society for Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery (KSMBS) introduced surgeon's and institution's accreditation system. The authors intend to introduce comprehensive overview of accreditation system of bariatric surgery and discuss the contents of national health insurance for metabolic and bariatric surgery.
Accreditation ; Bariatric Surgery ; Incidence ; Korea ; National Health Programs ; Obesity ; Obesity, Morbid ; Prevalence ; Social Class ; Statistics as Topic

OBJECTIVES: The symptoms of fungal infections vary from minor to severe. According to recent reports, fungal infection prevalence is increasing due to increases in the aging population and in patients with compromised immune systems. However, the total prevalence of fungal infections in South Korea is unknown. We investigated the recent 5-year prevalence of each type of fungal infection in South Korea across age, sex, and regional groups. METHODS: Nationwide data from the National Health Insurance of South Korea were used. The target population included patients who had received treatment for a fungal infection that was listed as the main disease. For each patient, multiple treatments were counted as one case per year in the data analysis. RESULTS: The annual prevalence of all-type mycoses increased from 6.9% in 2009 to 7.4% in 2013. Among the specific groups, the prevalence of dermatophytosis was highest (5.2%), followed by that of opportunistic mycoses (1.7%) and superficial mycoses (0.2%). The prevalence of subcutaneous mycoses and generalized mycoses was very low (8 cases per 100,000 persons and 3 cases per 1 million persons, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Every year, approximately 7.1% of the Korean population receives treatment for fungal diseases. Cases of opportunistic mycoses are assumed to increase each year. Therefore, further research is needed to understand and monitor the prevalence of mycoses to establish management policies to reduce the burden of fungal diseases.
Aging ; Health Services Needs and Demand ; Humans ; Immune System ; Insurance, Health ; Korea ; Mycoses ; National Health Programs* ; Prevalence* ; Statistics as Topic ; Tinea

PURPOSE: Rapid growth of prescription drug expenditures is a problem in South Korea. The objective of this study was to assess the contributions of four variables (therapeutic choice, drug-mix, original use, and price changes) to increases in drug expenditures paid by the National Health Insurance (NHI) in Korea. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was conducted between January 1, 2008 and June 30, 2012 utilizing data from the NHI Claims Database of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. The number of target drug types for final analysis was 13959. To analyze the growth rates of drug expenditures, this study used Fisher ideal index and the Laspeyres and Paasche indexes. RESULTS: With the exception of 2012, therapeutic choice contributed to about 40-60% of the increase in drug expenditures every year, while drug-mix contributed to another 30-40%. CONCLUSION: The rapid growth in prescription drug expenditure was found to be largely due to drug-mix and therapeutic choice over time. Original use had little impact on drug spending.
Cohort Studies ; Health Expenditures/*statistics & numerical data ; Humans ; National Health Programs/*economics ; Prescription Drugs/*economics ; Republic of Korea ; Retrospective Studies