This study aimed to understand and describe the experiences of patients and their families who have received medical services from advanced practice nurses in tertiary general hospitals in Korea.

Data were collected through four focus group interviews with 20 patients and their families who had received medical services from advanced practice nurses for more than six months at four tertiary hospitals from November 29 to December 28, 2023. Verbatim transcripts were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

The four themes extracted from the experiences of patients and their families were as follows: unfamiliar medical personnel encountered during the treatment process, healthcare professionals who exhibited excellence, companions to light my way through the tunnel of illness, and an advanced practice nurse system that must be activated urgently.

The study’s findings indicate that patients and their families view the care provided by advanced practice nurses as excellent, reliable, and holistic. Research suggests that advanced practice nurses are valuable healthcare professionals in team-based care. The findings suggest that hospitals should utilize an advanced practice nurse system to improve patient outcomes and ensure the quality of care.

This study aimed to develop a scale measuring the Patient-Centered Nursing Culture (PCNC) and provide a basic tool to improve PCNC in Korea.

A conceptual framework and construct factors were extracted through extensive literature review and in-depth interviews with nursing professionals. In total, 59 items were derived based on the pilot survey. Data were collected from 357 nurses working at general hospitals and analyzed for verifying the reliability and validity of the scale.

Nine factors containing 54 items were extracted from the exploratory factor analysis to verify the construct validity. The nine factors were top management leadership, policy and procedure, education and training, middle management leadership, supportive teamwork, nursing workplace environment, professional competence, patient-centered nursing activity, and nurses’ values. These items were verified by convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity testing. The internal consistency reliability was acceptable (Cronbach's α=.96).

The developed PCNC scale is expected to be used as the tool for the development of theory and improvement of PCNC, the empirical testing for cause and effect of PCNC, the development of interventions, education and training programs for improving PCNC, and indicators for evaluation or accreditation of hospital service quality.

The aim of this study was to classify nursing management competencies and develop behavioral indicators for nurse managers in hospitals. Also, levels of importance and performance based on developed criteria were to be identified and compared.

Using expert survey we classified nursing management competencies and behavioral indicators with data from 34 nurse managers and professors. Subsequently, data from a survey of 216 nurse managers in 7 cities was used to analyze the importance-performance comparison of the classified nursing management competencies and behavioral indicators.

Forty-two nursing management competencies were identified together with 181 behavioral indicators. The mean score for importance of nursing management competency was higher than the mean score for performance. According to the importance-performance analysis, 5 of the 42 nursing management competencies require further development: vision-building, analysis, change management, human resource development, and self-management competency.

The classification of nursing management competencies and behavioral indicators for nurse managers in hospitals provides basic data for the development and evaluation of programs designed to increase the competency of nurse managers in hospitals

The study purposes were to construct and test structural equation modeling on the causal relationship of community residents' perceived quality of care, image, and role performance with satisfaction, intention to (re)visit and intention to recommend hospital.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 3,900 community residents from 39 district public hospitals. The questionnaire was designed to collected information on personal characteristics and community awareness of public hospitals. Community awareness consisted of 6 factors and 18 items. The data were collected utilizing call-interview by a survey company. Research data were collected via questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 20.0 and AMOS version 20.0.

Model fit indices for the hypothetical model were suitable for the recommended level: χ²=796.40 (df=79, p <.001), GFI=.93, AGFI=.90, RMSR=.08, NFI=.94. Quality of care, image, and role performance explained 68.1% of variance in community awareness. Total effect of quality of care process factors on satisfaction (path coefficients=3.67), intention to (re)visit (path coefficients=2.67) and intention to recommend hospital (coefficients=2.45) were higher than other factors.

Findings show that public hospitals have to make an effort to improve community image through the provision of quality care, and excellent role performance. Support for these activities is available from both Central and Local Governments.

This study was done to evaluate the experience of securing patient safety in hospital operating rooms.

Experiential data were collected from 15 operating room nurses through in-depth interviews. The main question was "Could you describe your experience with patient safety in the operating room?". Qualitative data from the field and transcribed notes were analyzed using Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory methodology.

The core category of experience with patient safety in the operating room was 'trying to maintain principles of patient safety during high-risk surgical procedures'. The participants used two interactional strategies: 'attempt continuous improvement', 'immersion in operation with sharing issues of patient safety'.

The results indicate that the important factors for ensuring the safety of patients in the operating room are manpower, education, and a system for patient safety. Successful and safe surgery requires communication, teamwork and recognition of the importance of patient safety by the surgical team.

The purpose of the study was to examine mission statements and their elements and to investigate correlations between mission statements and organizational performance.

The current research was a descriptive study based on the examination of mission statements of 353 hospitals that posted mission statements on their webpage and 92 hospitals that made their income statements public.

The most common mission element was 'identification of principal services', which accounted for 92.6%. Mission statements of hospitals included the average of 4.82 mission elements out of 9, and the objective of medical quality improvement was 0.81 among 6 objectives of IOM (Institute of Medicine). Net profit of hospitals with mission statements that have above average number of mission elements were significantly higher (t=2.71, p =.008) than those of other hospitals. Net profit was significantly correlated with mission statements (r=.26, p <.001), and mission elements (r=.29, p <.001).

The results of the study empirically reveal that mission statements in the hospital affect organizational performance. That is, better organizational performance is shown for hospitals with better, more diversified, and more firmly stated mission statements which include identification of target customers, identification of principal services, contribution to society as a non-profit organization, and concern for employees.

Objectives of this study were to investigate the association between efficiency and quality of health care in Long-term Care Hospitals (LTCH) and determine related factors that would enable achievement of both high efficiency and high quality at the same time.

Major data sources were the "2012 Korean Assessment of Propriety by Long-term Care Hospitals" obtained from the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service. Cost variables were supplemented by a National Tax Service accounting document. First, data envelopment analysis was performed by generating efficiency scores for each LTCH. Second, matrix analysis was conducted to ascertain association between efficiency and quality. Lastly, kruskal-wallis and mann-whitney tests were conducted to identify related factors.

First, efficiency and quality of care are not in a relationship of trade-offs; thus, LTCH can be confident that high efficiency-high quality can be achieved. Second, LTCH with a large number of beds, longer tenure of medical personnel, and adequate levels of investment were more likely to have improved quality as well as efficiency.

It is essential to enforce legal standards appropriate to the facilities, reduce turnover of nursing staff, and invest properly in human resources. These consequences will help LTCH to maintain the balance of high efficiency-high quality in the long-run.

To analyze the structure of Korean nurse labor market and examine its effect on hospital nurse staffing.

Secondary data were obtained from Statistics Korea, Education Statistics, and Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service and Patient Survey. Intensity of monopsony in the nurse labor market was measured by Herfindahl Hirshman Index (HHI). Hospital nurse staffing level was divided into high and low. While controlling for confounding factors such as inpatient days and severity mix of patients, effects of characteristics of nurse labor markets on nurse staffing levels were examined using multi-level logistic regressions.

For characteristics of nurse labor markets, metropolitan areas had high intensity of monopsony, while the capital area had competitive labor market and the unemployed nurse rate was higher than other areas. Among hospital characteristics, bed occupancy rate was significantly associated with nurse staffing levels. Among characteristics of nurse labor markets, the effect of HHI was indeterminable.

The Korean nurse labor market has different structure between the capital and other metropolitan areas. But the effect of the structure of nurse labor market on nurse staffing levels is indeterminable. Characteristics such as occupancy rate and number of beds are significantly associated with nurse staffing levels. Further study in support of the effect of nurse labor market is needed.

Purpose: In this study analysis was done of utilization of rooming-in care in South Korean hospitals in order to examine the factors related to mothers and hospitals that affect rooming-in care.

With the involvement of 254,414 mothers who gave birth across 953 hospitals, the analysis used the health insurance qualification data of the National Health Insurance Corporations and Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (2006). Factors associated with rooming-in care were analyzed using a GEE logistic regression analysis to consider factors related to both mothers and hospitals.

Only 45.1% of the mothers used rooming-in care. The results of the regression analysis revealed that individual factors of the mothers were not associated with rooming-in care, whereas group factors of the hospitals were. Rooming-in care use was primarily related to small hospital, location of hospital, and higher nurse staffing level.

The findings of this study indicate that the utilization of rooming-in care is not associated with factors an individual mother, but rather with the group factors of the hospitals. Thus, a policy-based approach considering both of these types of factors is required to enhance the utilization of rooming-in care.

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a transitional care program for patients discharged from military hospitals. The study consists of two phases: developing the program and evaluating its effectiveness.

The conceptual framework used to guide the development of the program was Meleis's transition theory. A quasi-experimental design was employed for this study. Participants were recruited from patients discharged from one military hospital, 72 in the control group and 56 in the experiment group. Data were analyzed using SPSS WIN 12.0 program with chi-square, Fisher's exact test, independent t-test, and mixed model.

Participants in the transitional care program reported promoting a positive personal condition, and more healthy patterns of response in the first week after being discharged and a smoother discharge transition.

The transitional care program developed for discharge patients from military hospital promoted discharge readiness and promoted smooth discharge transition.