Framing Service, Benefit, and Credibility Through Images and Texts: A Content Analysis of Online Promotional Messages of Korean Medical Tourism Industry

Traditional Chinese Medicine: Communicating Informational and Symbolic Functions in the Linguistic Landscape

While dissemination of information is a key function of health communication, signage at medical facilities has other functions: signs can be a type of marketing (e.g., services offered), can promote credibility and inspire trust, can exacerbate or ameliorate social inequalities and can provide educational opportunities. All of these functions are influenced by cultural, contextual and social factors as evidenced by a linguistic landscape (LL) perspective. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a particularly instructive case for considering the functions of signage in healthcare LL as it has a strong cultural component from its historical Chinese roots, but its practice has been popularized around the globe in recent years. Given the role of TCM as a main or complementary medical treatment and healthcare option, this study investigates TCM LLs as sites of healthcare communication. Specifically, we analyze a set of 1,659 signs from two TCM hospitals in a multilingual, ethnic minority region of China as a case study which can be useful for healthcare providers when considering their own use of LL. We describe the way language and other sign features are used for informational, symbolic and other functions, showing how explicit communication channels as well as implicit ideological channels can impact healthcare communication. We discuss these findings in light of the need for healthcare communication which is sensitive to stakeholder needs.

Experiences of oncology healthcare personnel in international medical service quality: a phenomenological study

BACKGROUND

With the globalization of medical services on the rise, Asia has ascended to a destination of choice for its high-quality medical services at very reasonable rates. Monitoring the quality of the international medical industry is vital to maintain service demand. The experiences of healthcare personnel (HCP) involved in international medical services (IMS) regarding the provision of services to international cancer patients have not yet been discussed. This study aimed to explore oncology HCP experiences of IMS quality in caring for international cancer patients in Taiwan.

METHODS

Descriptive phenomenological method and were analyzed through Colaizzi's seven-step approach. In this study, 19 respondents were collected data by using in-depth semi-structured interviews. An average interview lasted approximately 45 min.

RESULTS

Four major themes were identified from the interviews: patient selection, psycho-oncology care, predicaments, and promoting suggestions. Additionally, thirteen subthemes emerged, including necessary selection of patients, reasons for unwillingness to enroll international patients, helpless patients, emotional distress, care with warmth, insufficient manpower, an unfair reward mechanism, poor hardware equipment, the predicaments of oncology care, various publicity strategies, one-on-one service model, design of a designated area, and reasonable benefit distribution.

CONCLUSIONS

This study explored oncology HCP experiences of IMS quality in caring for international cancer patients, with implications for hospitals in developing high-quality IMS. Due to the fact that IMS is a global trend, HCPs, administrators, and policy-makers are advised to improve the quality of IMS in the oncology department, which has been the least studied field in IMS quality.

Cost-effectiveness of hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy following interval cytoreductive surgery for stage III-IV ovarian cancer from a randomized controlled phase III trial in Korea (KOV-HIPEC-01)

BACKGROUND

To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the addition of hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) following interval cytoreductive surgery (ICS) for stage III-IV ovarian cancer from a randomized controlled phase III trial.

METHODS

A comparative cost-effective analysis was performed using a Markov health-state transition model derived from the current trial cohort (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01091636). The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was evaluated by dividing the incremental costs by incremental quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) with a time horizon of 10 years. Costs were calculated from the perspective of Korean healthcare, and health utility values were extracted from published sources.

RESULTS

Based on data from the trial, the mean QALY in the ICS group was 7.16 compared to 10.8 in ICS followed by the HIPEC group. With an incremental QALY of 3.64, the ICS followed by HIPEC, was estimated to obtain an ICER of KRW 954,598 (USD 708.3) per QALY.

CONCLUSION

The findings of the study suggest that ICS followed by HIPEC, is cost-effective with a significant gain in QALYs. These results may support the current reimbursement of HIPEC from Korean insurance services and the management of long-term conditions.

Scoping the literature on patient travel abroad for cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment

The incidence of cancer is on the rise globally. Under particular circumstances, patients are willing to travel abroad for healthcare treatments. We know relatively little however about patients travelling overseas for cancer-related screening, diagnosis and treatment. Where do patients go, for what treatments, what are their motivations, decision-making processes and treatment experiences? What do we know about patient safety and risk, and outcomes? More broadly, what are the ethical and legal implications? This review presents the first published assessment of what we term 'transnational oncology treatment', defined as patients travelling overseas or across borders for cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment. The review undertakes detailed search and retrieval of the literature, using an accepted scoping review method. We present a narrative review of existing knowledge and themes, identifying coverage and gaps. There is a five-fold agenda for future investigation: trajectories and itineraries; in depth focus on treatment decisions, experiences and outcomes; locating patient travel within wider health system analysis; exploration of professional perspectives and coordination; and situating travel within the context of health trade. Such an agenda is multidisciplinary and wide-ranging, encompassing epidemiology, health economics, health policy ethics, health politics, health management, and health policy.

Using photos for public health communication: A computational analysis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Instagram photos and public responses

This study aims to explore the use of Instagram by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the representative public health authorities in the United States. For this aim, all of the photos uploaded on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Instagram account were crawled and the content of them were analyzed using Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services. Also, engagement was measured by the sum of numbers of likes and comments to each photo, and sentiment analysis of comments was conducted. Results suggest that the photos that can be categorized into "text" and "people" took the largest share in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Instagram photos. And it was found that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's major way of delivering messages on Instagram was to imprint key messages that call for actions for better health on photos and to provide the source of complementary information on text component of each post. It was also found that photos with more and bigger human faces had lower level of engagement than the others, and happiness and neutral emotions expressed on the faces in photos were negatively associated with engagement. The features whose high value would make the photos look splendid and gaudy were negatively correlated with engagement, but sharpness was positively correlated.