Korean Academy of Medical Sciences

BackgroundA clear and precise definition of the “intended use” in developing new medical devices can determine the success of entering the healthcare market. For this, practical collaboration between the clinical and engineering experts is necessary, and an appropriate tool is required for effective information collection and decision-making in the process.MethodsThe Korean Academy of Medical Sciences, in cooperation with the Korean Medical Device Development Fund, implemented the Healthcare Experts’ Advisory Unit and Support (HAUS) program to match advisory clinical experts in medical device development projects. Three and five collaborative academic conferences were held in 2022 and 2023 to raise awareness of the HAUS program. In the consultation meeting, checklists were used to facilitate communications and satisfaction surveys were conducted afterward. Then, the results of the consultation meetings were compiled to build an integrated document.ResultsThe HAUS program was conducted with a gradually increasing number of consultation sessions from 31 in 2021 to 128 in 2023. The medical device development teams (development teams) expressed a higher level of satisfaction (91.4% to 100%) compared to the advisors (clinical experts) (78.6% to 100%) across the survey items. Based on the experiences and observations of the HAUS consultation meetings, the “Clinical Unmet Needs-based Intended Use Establishment (CLUE) templates” were developed, which were purposes to improve communication efficiency and to support a systematic approach in establishing the intended use. The CLUE process comprises four main stages for processing: Stage 1, Initial Concept; Stage 2, Expert Consultation; Stage 3, Decision-making; and Stage 4, Intended Use.ConclusionThe HAUS program seemed to be helpful for the development teams by providing opinions of clinical experts. And the resultant product, the CLUE templates have been proposed to facilitate collaboration between the development teams and the advisors and to define robust clinical intended use.

Clinical practice guidelines (CPG) are one of the most effective ways to translate evidence of medical improvement into everyday practice. This study evaluated the dissemination and implementation of the Sexually Transmitted Infections-Korean Guidelines (STIKG) by applying the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance (RE-AIM) framework. A survey questionnaire was administered to clinicians via the internet. Among the 332 respondents, 190 (57.2%) stated that they were aware of STIKG and 107 (33.2%) implemented STIKG in their practice. The odds that a physician was exposed to STIKG (dissemination) were 2.61 times greater among physicians with previous training or education for any CPG than those who did not. Clinicians who indicated that STIKG were easy to understand were 4.88 times more likely to implement STIKG in their practice than those who found them not so easy. When a clinician's workplace had a supporting system for CPG use, the odds of implementation was 3.76 times higher. Perceived level of effectiveness of STIKG did not significantly influence their implementation. The findings of this study suggest that, ultimately, knowing how to engage clinicians in CPG implementation is as important as how to disseminate such guidelines; moreover, easy-to-use guidelines and institutional support are key factors.

Writing a good quality scientific article takes experience and skill. I propose 'Ten Tips' that may help to improve the quality of manuscripts for scholarly journals. It is advisable to draft first version of manuscript and revise it repeatedly for consistency and accuracy of the writing. During the drafting and revising the following tips can be considered: 1) focus on design to have proper content, conclusion, points compliant with scope of the target journal, appropriate authors and contributors list, and relevant references from widely visible sources; 2) format the manuscript in accordance with instructions to authors of the target journal; 3) ensure consistency and logical flow of ideas and scientific facts; 4) provide scientific confidence; 5) make your story interesting for your readers; 6) write up short, simple and attractive sentences; 7) bear in mind that properly composed and reflective titles increase chances of attracting more readers; 8) do not forget that well-structured and readable abstracts improve citability of your publications; 9) when revising adhere to the rule of 'First and Last' - open your text with topic paragraph and close it with resolution paragraph; 10) use connecting words linking sentences within a paragraph by repeating relevant keywords.

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows: To evaluate the effects of massage with or without aromatherapy on pain and other symptoms associated with cancer.

BackgroundClinical practice guideline for Sexually Transmitted Infections were developed in 2011 by The Korean Urological Association supported financially by the Korean government. It is necessary to establish the theory-based strategy to disseminate and implement guideline more effectively.ObjectivesTo evaluate dissemination and implementation of clinical practice guideline for Sexually Transmitted Infections in primary health care in Korea.MethodsThe RE-AIM framework in terms of reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance was applied. Structured questionnaire was formulated. Survey was performed by e-mailing to physicians working at primary health care clinics from 1st Nov – 30thNov 2012 and 305 physicians responded.ResultsOf the total respondents, 37.5% answered ‘Reach’- no problem for the accessibility of clinical guidelines, cognitive level, and adoption. For Effectiveness measurement, the use of practice guidelines would help the determination of the direction of treatment and communication with patients (52.2%). For the Adoption-environment to apply clinical practice guidelines, there were no problems (50.6%). For Implementation-the degree of application with Practice Guidelines, 17.8% of respondents frequently used the guidelines and, 91.0% of respondents are willing to use them in the future. For Maintenance, 54.8% of respondents used the clinical practice guidelines for more than 6 months.DiscussionThe reach has been low and even in the respondents with the guideline, the rate of clinical application has been low as well.Implications for Guideline Developers/UsersRE-AIM framework is a useful tool to evaluate the effect of using guidelines and develop strategies to disseminate them.

969 c Korean Medical Association This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Focused Issue of This Month·한국 보건의료정책의 현황과 방향 J Korean Med Assoc 2012 October; 55(10): 969-977 http://dx.doi.org/10.5124/jkma.2012.55.10.969 pISSN: 1975-8456 eISSN: 2093-5951 http://jkma.org

R of the post-graduate medical education (PGME) system, which has been almost fixed since the introduction of the intern-resident training system in Korea more than 50 years ago, is particularly demanding because of changes in the contents of basic medical education and the patient-doctor relationship, division into sub-specialties, the introduction of fellowship training, changing patterns in doctors' work as information technology advanced, and the modifications to the PGME system in the advanced countries. The internship is not an effective course for PGME. The graduates of medical colleges or medical schools can practice by himself or herself without a PGME course. The durations of PGME for various subspecialties are almost the same: one year of internship and four years of residency. The working conditions of trainees are not adequate for proper education and patient safety. Current internships should be merged into residency by a straight internship. PGME should be mandatory for those who want to practice after graduation from medical colleges or medical school without resident training. The duration of PGME for each subspecialty should be newly adjusted. The working conditions of trainees must be improved. Even though this report suggests future directions for PGME on a broad scale, fine adjustment and design of further details should follow. This report has taken comments and opinions from the medical societies into consideration. Nonetheless, it may need further discussion among the stakeholders of PGME including trainees in order to minimize misunderstanding and 'trial and error' during the revision process.

This study aims to investigate the factors related to the adoption of clinical practice guidelines in clinical settings in Korea; it also aims to determine how these factors differ depending on the specific situation of health care system and professional climate. The research sample comprised physicians who are board members of academic societies with experiences in development of clinical practice guidelines using a convenient sampling. We analyzed 324 physicians with pooling two-year sample of 2007 and 2008. From all the respondents, 48.8% stated that they followed Clinical Practice Guidelines, and 93.4% agreed with the content in the Clinical Practice Guidelines. With regard to the item on the self-efficacy of practicing guidelines, 90.3% of the respondents selected 'low level'. In the regression analysis, the factors associated with implementation were level of recognition, agreement and self-efficacy and positive attitude towards practice guidelines. Although the health care system in Korea differs from those in Western countries, our results revealed that the factors related to the adoption of practice guidelines were similar to the research results of Western countries. These results suggest that professionals' attitudes towards clinical practice guidelines are universal, and implementation strategies should be developed globally.