Laboratory Confirmatory Rate of Pandemic Influenza (H1N1 2009) Virus in Korean Households with Index Case / 감염과화학요법

BACKGROUND: Influenza transmission in households a subject of renewed interest especially in pandemic situation. We performed this study to investigate the laboratory-confirmatory rate in household contacts with index cases of pandemic influenza (H1N1 2009). MATERIALS AND METHODS: For three months from 1 September and 29 November 2009, people who had a history of close contact with confirmed cases of pandemic influenza (index case) were recruited. The information on the study participants was collected using a standardized questionnaire. Presence of the pandemic influenza (H1N1 2009) infection was confirmed by real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). RESULTS: A total of 113 index cases and 141 household contacts were investigated. One hundred and four index cases (92.0%) were younger than 20 years. The median age of household contacts was 40 years. Twenty eight household contacts (19.8%) had acute respiratory illness (ARI). Overall, 10.6% of enrolled household contacts were positive in RT-PCR for pandemic influenza (H1N1 2009). The positive rate of household contacts with ARI was 25.0% and it was 7.1% in household contacts without ARI. The positive rate was significantly higher in children and young adults under 30 years (28.3%) compared with that in household contacts older than 30 years (8.3%). CONCLUSIONS: This results showed a significant role of mild symptomatic or asymptomatic pandemic influenza (H1N1 2009) patients as a virus carriers in households.

The variation in risk adjusted mortality of intensive care units / 대한마취과학회지

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to estimate risk adjusted mortality rate in the ICUs (Intensive care units) by APACHE (Acute Physiology And Chronic Health Evaluation) III for revealing the performance variation in ICUs. METHODS: This study focused on 1,090 patients in the ICUs of 18 hospitals. For establishing risk adjusted mortality predictive model, logistic regression analysis was performed. APACHE III, surgery experience, admission route, and major disease categories were used as independent variables. The performance of each model was evaluated by c-statistic and goodness-of-fit test of Hosmer-Lemeshow. Using this predictive model, the performance of each ICU was tested as ratio of predictive mortality rate and observed mortality rate. RESULTS: The average observed mortality rate was 24.1%. The model including APACHE III score, admission route, and major disease categories was signified as the fittest one. After risk adjustment, the ratio of predictive mortality rate and observed mortality rate was distributed from 0.49 to 1.55. CONCLUSIONS: The variation in risk adjusted mortality among ICUs was wide. The effort to reduce this quality difference is needed.

Performance Evaluation of Emergency Medical Center / 예방의학회지

Currently, there are 100 community emergency centers which expect to provide professional emergency care like Level 1 trauma centers in U.S.A. To evaluate Performance of emergency center, most studies have been widely adopted death rate based methods such as Trauma and Injury Severity Score(TRISS) and A Severity Characterization of Trauma(ASCOT). However, these methods are only applicable in situation where registration process of trauma patients is well established. Therefore, an alternative method should be applied to evaluate performance of emergency centers in Korea which does not have well-developed registration scheme. This study aims to develop new performance measures which are applicable to Korea and evaluate performance of 35 community emergency centers through new measures. The new measures are included that 'W-statistic' ; death rate calculated on the basis of International Classification based Injury Severity Score(ICISS), and 'the degree of severity' ; rate of severe trauma patients of each emergency medical centers. The study results can be summarized as follows. First, about 34% of sample emergency centers show they provide proper care in terms of their function. Second, tertiary hospitals, university hospitals, and hospitals located in Seoul show higher severity degree of patients and lower severity-adjusted death rate.

Adoption and Its Determining Factors of Computerized Tomography in Korea / 예방의학회지

High price equipment is one of the major factors that increases national health expenditure in developed countries. Computerized Tomography(CT), one of the important high price equipment, has been concerns of health service researchers and policy makers in many countries. In Korea, CT, first introduced in 1984, have spreaded nationwide with rapid speed. Though the Committee for Approving Import of High Price Medical Equipment, founded in 1981, tried to regulate the introduction of high price medical equipment including CT, the effort resulted in failure. The exact situation of diffusion of the high price equipment, however, was not yet investigated. We aimed at the description of the diffusion of CT in Korea and analysis of influencing factors in hospitals for the adoption of CT. We mainly used the database of CT, made in 1996 by the National Federation of Medical Insurance for the purpose of insurance payment for CT. Also characteristics of hospitals were gathered from yearbooks published by the central and local governments and by the Korean Hospital Association. We calculated the cumulative number of the CT per one million population year by year. In turn, multiple linear logistic regression was done to fine out the contributing factors for the adoption of CT by each hospital. In the logistic regression model, it is regarded as dependent factor whether a hospital retained CT or not in 1988 and 1993. The major categories of the independent factors were hospital characteristics, environmental factors and competitive conditions of hospitals at the period of the adoption. The results are as follows : Numberof CT scanners per one million persons in Korea marked more higher level compared with those of most OECD countries. Major influencing factors on the adoption of CT scanners were hospital characteristics, such as hospital referral level, and competitive condition of hospitals, such as number of CT scanners per 10,000 persons in each district where the hospital was located. In Korea, CT diffused with rather rapid speed, comparable with those of the United States and Japan. The major factors contributing on the adoption of CT for hospitals were competitive condition and hospital characteristics rather than regional health care need for Ct. In conclusion, a kind of regulating mechanism would be necessary for the prevention of the indiscreet adoption and inefficient use of high price equipment including CT.

Can Cesarean Section Rate Be Used as a Hospital-Wide Quality Indicator in Korean Hospitals? / 대한산부인과학회잡지

With the sharply increasing practice of cesarean section(C/S), formerly known as a landmark of developing medical technology, appropriateness of the procedure has been widely inquired into. Appropriateness of a specific procedure could be an indicator for quality, at the individual or organizational level. Cesarean section rate is regarded as a sensitive indicator reflecting clinical quality at the hospital level. We are interested in the validity and significance of C/S rate as a quality indicator in Korean hospitals, in addition to the current status of the practice. This study was carried out retrospectively based on the clinical records of cesarean sections in 32 hospitals nationwide from March to May 1996. Standardized survey format was distributed, and reviews were performed by volunteer surveyors from each hospital after two sessions of pre-survey education. The results were as follows : 1. There were 13,241 deliveries with 4,599 cases of cesarean sections, giving an incidence of 38.5%. This result shows the incidence of cesarean section was 1.6 times higher than U.S. and about four times higher than European countries. 2. The monthly incidence of cesarean section was not variable, but it shows great differences among the hospitals. 3. The incidences of cesarean sections were variable among different age groups with marked higher rate in older one. 4. Most of deliveries were with gestational period from 37 to 44 weeks(91%), in which C/S rate was 39%. For pregnancies with less than or equal to 32 weeks, the rate was 21% and for more than or equal to 45 weeks the rate was 25%. 5. The most frequent indication of cesarean birth was previous cesarean section(37.7%), followed by cephalopelvic disproportion and dystocia(24.4%). 6. There were no statistical differences in cesarean section rates by hospital variables such as ownership, teaching status, proportion of specialists, number of physicians per bed, number of nurses per bed, regional location, and number of beds. Exceptionally, hospitals with independent obstetrics department, separated from gynecology, showed significant lower rate than hospitals with conventional obstetrics-gynecology department. We could confirm higher C/S rate than any other countries. However, C/S rate, not significantly different among hospitals with variable quality level in structural aspect, was not acceptable as a sensitive indicator for clinical quality at the hospital level. Different rates between comparable organizational settings, sometimes indirectly related to the clinical quality, suggested that more studies focused on other aspects of quality than structure should be needed.