The diagnosis of healthcare policy problems in Korea

The definition of a policy problem is important in all stages of the policy processes, and especially in presidential election seasons, which usually open the political window. We propose priorities among the policy problems of Korean healthcare by the positioning approach, which compares Korea with Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries using OECD health data. The range of positioning is 1 to -1 where 1 is the best or highest level among OECD countries, 0 is the average level, and -1 is the worst or lowest level. The positioning results show that the overall health status of Korea is good (positioning=0.34), but the suicide rate (-1.00) is a major problem. Healthcare human resources are scarce (-0.46), but rapidly increasing. Hospital beds and medical equipments are over-supplied (respectively 0.37, 0.33), but medical equipments that are utilized mainly in tertiary hospitals are below average. The utilization of healthcare is at the top level in doctors’ consultations (0.97) and average length of stay (0.65). The quality of in-patient care is good (0.35), but quality of out-patient care is poor (-0.36). Healthcare costs are low (-0.73), but their growth rate is high. Among healthcare costs, the policy problems are large pharmaceutical expenditures and many households with catastrophic expenditures. This study determined the priorities of healthcare policy problems in Korea. The next step is to search for the factors that influence these policy problems and develop their solutions.

section_content: 보 건의료정책은 바람직한 보건의료 상태를 이루려는 정 책목표와 이를 달성하기 위해 필요한 정책수단에 대하 여 권위 있는 정부기관이 공식적으로 결정한 기본방침이다 [1]. 따라서 보건의료정책의 출발점은 바람직하지 않은 보건 의료 상태, 즉, 보건의료정책 문제로부터 출발한다. 그리고 정 책문제를 어떻게 정의하는가가 정책대안 설정방향에 긴밀하 게 연관되어 있으므로 정책문제의 정의는 매우 중요하다 [2].
section_name: 서 론

section_name: 보건의료 접근도

section_name: 보건의료의 질 OECD 국가들과 비교할 때 한국의 보건의료 질은 입원진

section_content: 한국은 OECD 국가들과 비교할 때 의료비에 대한 위치 도가 -0. 73으로 낮다( Mean of total expenditure and % of total expenditure of GDP.
section_name: 보건의료비

section_content: The
section_name: 특 집