Public Reporting on the Quality Ratings of Nursing Homes in the Republic of Korea

BACKGROUND: Quality ratings could provide vital information to help people in choosing a nursing home. PURPOSE: This study investigated factors aligned with quality ratings of nursing homes. METHODS: We employed a cross-sectional descriptive design to assess publicly available data on 1,354 nursing homes with 30 or more beds in the Republic of Korea. After excluding 289 nursing homes with no reported quality-evaluation ratings, we analyzed the 2015 data of 1,065 nursing homes. To prevent multicollinearity among independent variables, we carefully selected the final set of variables based on clinical and theoretical meaningfulness to direct nursing care. Quality, the ordinal outcome, was scored from 1 to 5 with a higher score indicating higher quality of the organization. We constructed a multivariate ordered logistic regression model. RESULTS: Higher quality ratings of nursing homes was significantly related to the number of unoccupied beds (OR=0.99, p=.024), registered nurses (RNs) (OR=1.30, p=.003), qualified care workers (OR=1.03, p=.011), cognitive-improvement programs (OR=1.05, p=.024), and other programs for residents' activities (OR=1.09, p<.001). CONCLUSION: The number of RNs had the strongest influence on the publicly reported quality rating, while the rating of qualified care workers demonstrated little effect and that of nursing assistants had no effect. The number of RNs could be used as a crucial indicator for high-quality homes; more resident-engaging programs also demonstrated better quality of nursing home care.

Demographic Characteristics of Cadaver Donors: One Hundred Ten Cadaver Donors at Chonbuk National University Medical School / 체질인류학회지

Since the beginning of anatomy education in Korea, the supply of cadavers was dependent on the dead of non-identified vagabonds, mainly. Recently, the body donation program was introduced, and it has been operating and managing. However, the management agencies of this program are numerous, medical colleges and organizations of society. Thus it is very difficult to find the demographic characteristics and the statistical data of cadaver donors. The purpose of this study is to compare the demographic characteristics such as the number of death, sex, age, the place of residence, causes of death and others between death in Jeollabuk-do of annual report of death statistics (National Statistical Office) and 110 cadaver donors at Chonbuk National University Medical School in 2000~2004. Numbers of the donated cadaver increased 1.9% from 15 donors in 2000 to 29 donors in 2004. The dead were 69,447 persons in Jeollabuk-do for 5 years (in 2000~2004), and 110 cadaver donors, 0.16% of death in Jeollabuk-do, were donated to Chonbuk National University Medical School at this times. There was a ratio of 57.3% male to 42.7% female in cadaver donors. The age of donors was sixties 26.4%, seventies 25.4% and forties 14.5%. The regional proportion of donors was highest in Jeonju city among 14 regions. The death causes of donors were the neoplasms with 35.5%, the diseases of the circulatory system with 12.7%, it was similar to the statistical result of the dead in Jeollabuk-do. The death place of donors was the highest in hospital. The christian of cadaver donors was 60%. The registrant of Chonbuk Council of Body Donors and some other organizations was 48.2% among the cadaver donors. These results may contribute to the supply of cadavers for the anatomical education and research as well as the proliferation of cadaver donation movement. We hope that the studies of the demographic characteristics to body donation will be continued with medical colleges in Korea.

2002 Annual Report of the Korea Central Cancer Registry: Based on Registered Data from 139 Hospitals / Journal of the Korean Cancer Association, 대한암학회지

PURPOSE: To estimate the number of cancer cases during 2002 in Korea through a nationwide hospital based cancer registration by the Korea Central Cancer Registry (KCCR). MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred and thirty nine hospitals participated in the KCCR program in 2002. Cancer cases were coded and classified according to the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology 2nd edition (ICD-O-2). The software program `IARC Check' was used to evaluate the quality of registered cancer cases. Of the 122, 770 malignancies registered, 11, 732 (9.6%) duplicated malignancies were excluded. Among the remaining 102, 677 malignancies, 3, 652 (3.6%) cases with carcinoma in situ (Morphology code/2) were separated. Finally, 99, 025 malignancies were analyzed. RESULTS: Of the total of 99, 025 malignancies, 55, 398 (55.9%) cases were males and 43, 627 (44.1%) were females. More than one third of cases were from the elderly (65 years old and more). The six leading primary cancer sites in the order of their relative frequency, were stomach (24.0%), followed by the lung (16.0%), the liver (15.4%), the colorectum (11.6%), the bladder (3.2%), and the prostate (3.0%) among males. In females, the breast (16.8%) was the common cancer site, followed by the stomach (15.3%), the colorectum (10.7%), the thyroid gland (9.5%), the cervix uteri (9.1%), and the lung (6.6%). CONCLUSION: With the continued increase in cancer cases especially prostate cancer among males and thyroid cancer among females, the total number of registered cancer cases in Korea continues to rapidly increase.

2001 Annual Report of the Korea Central Cancer Registry: Based on Registered Data from 134 Hospitals / Journal of the Korean Cancer Association, 대한암학회지

PURPOSE: To estimate the number of cancer cases during 2001, in Korea, through a nationwide hospital based cancer registration by the Korea Central Cancer Registry (KCCR). MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred and thirty four hospitals participated in the KCCR program in 2001. Cancer cases were coded and classified according to the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology 2nd edition (ICD-O-2). The software program "IARC Check" was used to evaluate the quality of the registered cancer cases. Of the 111, 816 malignancies registered, 10, 106 (9.0%) duplicated malignancies were excluded. Among the remaining 95, 542 malignancies, 3, 598 (3.8%) cases with carcinoma in situ (Morphology code/2) were separated. Finally, 91, 944 malignancies were analyzed. RESULTS: Of the total 91, 944 malignancies, 51, 753 (56.3%) cases were males and 40, 191 (43.7%) were females. More than one third of cases were from the elderly (65 years old and more). The six leading primary cancer sites, in the order of their relative frequency, were stomach (24.1%), followed by the lung (16.0%), the liver (16.0%), the colorectum (10.5%), the bladder (3.4%), and the prostate (2.8%) among males. In females, the breast (16.1%) was the common cancer site, followed by the stomach (15.3%), the colorectum (10.5%), the cervix uteri (10.1%), the thyroid gland (8.3%) and the lung (6.6%). CONCLUSION: With the continued increase in cancer cases, the total number of registered cancer cases in Korea continues to rapidly increase.

Recent Surgical Treatment of Moyamoya Disease

The authors reviewed the recent trend of surgical treatment for pediatric as well as adult onset moyamoya disease(MMD). Combined direct and indirect arterial anastomosis or multiple indirect arterial bypasss has been increasing for pediatric MMD and direct arterial bypass is recommended for adult MMD, especially in patients with hemorrhagic MMD. Besides perioperative complications related to the management of MMD and 1999 annual report by the Research Committee on Spontaneous Occlusion of the Circle of Willis(Moyamoya Disease) of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Japan will be summarizd.

Standardization of Disease, Diagnostic and Neurosurgical Procedures for the Investigation of Korean Neurosurgical Epidemiology - Part 2: Clinical Application -

OBJECTIVE: Using the standardization of disease diagnosis of disease, and surgical procedures, the authors have made a clinical application for the analysis of inpatient data with the ability to search for information pertinent for writing of clinical articles. METHODS: A client-server system and database software was developed for networking. For clinical application, a computerized daily report has been developed. Data from Neurosurgical patients admitted at Soonchunyang University Hospital from January to December 1998 were analyzed with this system. Data for clinical articles was obtained using the search mode, information such as orbital infarction syndrome following intracranial aneurysm surgery and epidemiological analysis or geriatric neurosurgical patients. RESULTS: For the daily report it takes approximately 10 minutes to input the patients demographic information, name of disease, diagnosis and surgical procedure. The daily report also numbers and sorts the inpatients according to large categories of diagnosis, reports the ratio between inpatients and operative patients. The annual report that was obtained was very accurate and gave rapid statistics for the one year. By retrospective study for the past 18 years, we calculated the incidence of orbital infarction syndrome following intracranial aneurysm surgery as 1.4%, and also estimated the population of geriatric inpatients as 18.3% by retrospective study. CONCLUSIONS: It has been found to be most useful to make a daily and annual report for tracking and research purposes. For use in clinical articles, it can be possible to do a search of the patients using the standardized disease, diagnosis and neurosurgical procedures application and obtain pertinent information in a timely manner.