Evaluation of changes in anesthetic methods for cesarean delivery: an analysis for 5 years using the big data of the Korean Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service

Background@#As an anesthesia induced during cesarean section, spinal anesthesia is preferred over general and epidural anesthesia. This study aimed to review the trend of anesthetic methods for cesarean section based on data obtained from the Korean Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service from 2013 to 2018. @*Methods@#The anesthetic methods were analyzed in 753,285 parturients who underwent a cesarean section in Korea from 2013 to 2018. We determined the association between each anesthetic method and hospital type and maternal and fetal factors. We also evaluated whether the anesthetic method was associated with the parturients’ length of hospital stay. @*Results@#General anesthesia, spinal anesthesia, and epidural anesthesia were induced in 28.8%, 47.7%, and 23.6% of parturients from 2013 to 2018, respectively. Trend analyses showed that spinal anesthesia increased from 40.0% in 2013 to 53.7% in 2018. The opposite trend applied to general anesthesia, decreasing from 37.1% in 2013 to 22.2% in 2018. The factors that were significantly associated with the anesthetic method were parturient’s parity, emergency condition, gestational age, and fetal weight. The type of hospital, parturient’s age, and multiple birth were also associated with the anesthetic methods. There was a strong association between general anesthesia and hospital stay longer than 7 days. @*Conclusions@#Spinal anesthesia is currently the main anesthetic method used for cesarean delivery, and the rate of spinal anesthesia is gradually increasing in Korea.

Trend and Characteristics of High Cost Patients in Health Insurance / 보건행정학회지

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to propose an analysis of trends and characteristics of high-cost patients who take over 40% of total national health insurance medical expenses. METHODS: It has been analyzed the tendency of high-cost patients by open data based on the medical history information of 1 million people among national health insurance subscriber from 2002 to 2015. To conduct detailed study of characteristics of high-cost patients, multiple regression has been performed by sex, age, residence, main provider, and admission status based on the top 5% group. RESULTS: The amount of medical expenses and the number of high-cost patients have gradually increased in decades. The number of high-cost patients for Korean won (KRW) 5,000,000 category has increased by 7.6 times, KRW 10,000,000 category has increased by 14.1 times in comparing of year 2002 and 2015. Top 5% medical expenses have increased by 4.6 times. In consideration of the characteristics of patients, the incidence of high medical expenses has been higher in female patients than male ones, the older patients than in the younger. Patients residence in Gyeonsang or Jeonla province have had a high incidence of medical expenses than other area. The disease including dementia, cerebral infarction, and cerebrovascular disease for high-cost patients has been also increased. CONCLUSION: The major increase factor for high medical expenses is the aging of population. The elderly population receiving inpatient care residing in the province that increases high medical costs have to management. There is an urgent need to develop a mechanism for predicting and managing the cost of high-cost medical expenses for patients who have a heavy financial burden.

Status and compliance with standard open format of public open data in healthcare in Korea

In the era of government 3.0, the availability of open government-owned public data and data sharing with the private sector are important. We surveyed the status of public data openness in the healthcare domain and of compliance with the standard open data format based on the “5 stars of linked data” model. We examined healthcare data on the Open Data Portal (https://www.data.go.kr). We also surveyed data on the websites of the public institutions and state administrative agencies that provided healthcare data on the Portal. In terms of data on the Portal, all public institutions except the National Medical Center, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, and the Korea Environment Corporation were found to have provided data in the 3-stars format corresponding to the Public Data Open Standard Maintenance Guide. All data provided by state administrative agencies met the 3-stars format. Only 2 institutions (the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service and the Korea Health Industry Development Institute) released data in the 3-stars format on their websites. Among the major state administrative agencies providing data on the Portal, none released data in the 3-stars format on their websites. Government-owned data should be provided in a standard format both on the Open Data Portal and on data-holders' websites to facilitate communication and collaboration. Considering the huge potential of linked healthcare data from a single national health insurance system, providing open data in compliance with the standard open format will promote the opening and sharing of public data.

Refinement and Evaluation of Korean Outpatient Groups for Visits with Multiple Procedures and Chemotherapy, and Medical Visit Indicators / 보건행정학회지

BACKGROUND: Issues concerning with the classification accuracy of Korean Outpatient Groups (KOPGs) have been raised by providers and researchers. The KOPG is an outpatient classification system used to measure casemix of outpatient visits and to adjust provider risk in charges by the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service in managing insurance payments. The objective of this study were to refine KOPGs to improve the classification accuracy and to evaluate the refinement. METHODS: We refined the rules used to classify visits with multiple procedures, newly defined chemotherapy drug groups, and modified the medical visit indicators through reviews of other classification systems, data analyses, and consultations with experts. We assessed the improvement by measuring % of variation in case charges reduced by KOPGs and the refined system, Enhanced KOPGs (EKOPGs). We used claims data submitted by providers to the HIRA during the year 2012 in both refinement and evaluation. RESULTS: EKOPGs explicitly allowed additional payments for multiple procedures with exceptions of packaging of routine ancillary services and consolidation of related significant procedures, and discounts ranging from 30% to 70% were defined in additional payments. Thirteen chemotherapy drug KOPGs were added and medical visit indicators were streamlined to include codes for consultation fees for outpatient visits. The % of variance reduction achieved by EKOPGs was 48% for all patients whereas the figure was 40% for KOPGs, and the improvement was larger in data from tertiary and general hospitals than in data from clinics. CONCLUSION: A significant improvement in the performance of the KOPG was achieved by refining payments for visits with multiple procedures, defining groups for visits with chemotherapy, and revising medical visit indicators.

Cost-Utility Analysis of Screening Strategies for Diabetic Retinopathy in Korea

This study involved a cost-utility analysis of early diagnosis and treatment of diabetic retinopathy depending on the screening strategy used. The four screening strategies evaluated were no screening, opportunistic examination, systematic fundus photography, and systematic examination by an ophthalmologists. Each strategy was evaluated in 10,000 adults aged 40 yr with newly diagnosed diabetes mellitus (hypothetical cohort). The cost of each strategy was estimated in the perspective of both payer and health care system. The utility was estimated using quality-adjusted life years (QALY). Incremental Cost Effectiveness Ratio (ICER) for the different screening strategies was analyzed. After exclusion of the weakly dominating opportunistic strategy, the ICER of systematic photography was 57,716,867 and that of systematic examination by ophthalmologists was 419,989,046 from the perspective of the healthcare system. According to the results, the systematic strategy is preferable to the opportunistic strategy from the perspective of both a payer and a healthcare system. Although systematic examination by ophthalmologists may have higher utility than systematic photography, it is associated with higher cost. The systematic photography is the best strategy in terms of cost-utility. However systematic examination by ophthalmologists can also be a suitable policy alternative, if the incremental cost is socially acceptable.

Web-Based Continuing Medical Education in Korean and Foreign Orthopaedic Societies / 대한정형외과학회잡지

PURPOSE: The current states of web-contents for continuing medical education (CME) of domestic and foreign orthropaedic web sites were investigated. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Korean Orthopaedic Association (KOA) and Korean Orthopaedic Cyber-Society (KOC) as domestic, and American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgerns (AAOS), Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS), AOSpine, and Arthroscopy as foreign web sites were searched in view of provided information technology (IT), including electrical paper (ePDF), lecture and surgical procedure video clips, case discussion, interactive content, and CME credit program. RESULTS: KOA supplied 19 types of ePDFs, and KOC, 43 video clips, and 217 case discussions. However, only one video clip was updated from 2011 to 2012 and 20 video clips from 2008 were not accessible. AAOS provided one type of ePDF, 142 lecture and 570 surgical procedure video clips, five interactive CME programs and 107 CME credit programs. In JBJS, one kind of ePDF, 97 video clips, 24 case discussions, and 37 CME credit programs were provided. In AOSpine, 12 types of ePDFs, 994 video clips, one interactive content, and 347 case discussions were provided. In Arthroscopy, one type of ePDF and 126 video clips were supplied. All web-contents were available. CONCLUSION: A large number of better quality web-contents and web-based CME credit programs should be implemented with standardized IT for Web-based CME in domestic orthropaedic societies.

The Impact of Order Communication System on Changes of User's Work Patterns, Adaptation and Satisfaction / 대한의료정보학회지

Order communication system(OCS) could change involved users' work pattern profoundly. Also adaptation to OCS and satisfaction with it influence the efficiency of management in hospital. This study applied self-administered questionnaire and individual interview to evaluate changes of users' work pattern, adaptation and satisfaction after the introduction of OCS. The survey measured the experience of computer use, user's evaluation on OCS education, degree of usage, change of work patterns, relation with co-workers or other departments, user's adaptation and satisfaction of physicians, nurses and pharmacists who worked in two university hospitals in Seoul that had introduced OCS. The major findings of this study were as follows; 1. Changes of users' work patterns were different between two hospitals. In a hospital major business time to issue and confirm order was decreased but in another hospital increased . 2. Relations of doctors with nurses were also different between two hospital. Frequency of contacts in a hospital was increased and doctor-nurse relationship grew worse, while in another hospital decreased and grew better. These situations were observed on the relationship with other departments, such as pharmacy and admission/discharge service. 3. There were no significant variables that explained user's adaptation, but again there was a difference between hospitals. 4. User's satisfaction was significantly affected by hospital and job catergories classified. Level of satisfaction of a hospital was higher than that of another, and highest in pharmacists, and the next was nurses and doctors in order. 5. There was o difference in satisfaction level by the type of hardwares, operations and accuracy between hospitals, but was difference by the contents of information, convenience of use and timeliness between hospital. The hospital factor consistently influenced users' work pattern, adaptation, and satisfaction. It implied that, if OCS was designed familiarly and conveniently for users, users' resistance will not trouble the implementation of OCS.

Medical Care Utilization of Tuberculosis Patients in Private Sector / 예방의학회지

In this study we analyzed the insurance claims data to investigate the medical care utilization pattern of tuberculosis patients in private sector. We selected the claims of principal or secondary diagnosis with tuberculosis from claims database of National Federation of Medical Insurance, from December 1995 to November 1996. Both spell-based analysis and person-based analysis were carried out. In spell-based analysis, type and location of treatment facilities, distribution of diagnoses, number of outpatient/inpatient treatments were analyzed. Additionally in person-based analysis, number of tuberculosis patients, demographic characteristics, number of treatments per person, frequency and pattern of change in source of care were analyzed. The results were as follows 1. The number of treatments with tuberculosis was 863,641 from 1 December 1995 to 30 November 1996. The number of patients was 313.964. 2. Most of tuberculosis patients in private sector were treated in general hospital(45.8%) and clinics(42.2%) 3. About 77.7% of tuberculosis patients who were treated more than two times did not change the source of carey. 18,9% of tuberculosis patients changed source of care only once. Even when we limited tuberculosis patient to those who were treated more than five times and whose treatment period were longer than six months, 94.7% of patients did not change source of care at all, or changed treatment facility only once. 4. The probability of change in source of care was higher in pulmonary tuberculosis, in twenties, and in rural area respectively than other tuberculosis. In conclusion, healer shopping of tuberculosis patients was not serious as expected. However special attention is needed to pulmonary tuberculosis in twenties and rural area

An Application of Delphi Method to the Assessment of Current Status of Cancer Research / 예방의학회지

Globally, cancer research has been considered one of the most important field of biomedical researches. Recently, in Korea, there are increasing concerns about cancer research and the development of national cancer control programme. For the efficient investment in cancer research at the national level, strategic approach is needed based on the nationwide information about current status of research. However even the basic data on cancer research have not been systematically collected, and are not available when necessary. The aim of this study is to assess current status of cancer research. For this purpose, this study applied two round Delphi method in which fifteen experts in cancer research fields participated. They rated each items on the initial list at the first round, and modified their responses at the second round. Panels responded that pathogenesis of cancer, research and development of cancer drug, and oncogene, etc. are the most urgent and important research fields. They assessed national level of cancer research as being 49.6% of the world highest level. Coefficient of variation tended to be lowered with the iteration. Predictive stability was evaluated to be lower in items of urgency than in items of importance and research level. Although this study shares the same limitations in the selection of the experts with many other Delphi studies, it provides a primary data that would be required to plan the national strategy of the cancer research.