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Medical Technology and Health Services in South Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2009

Byong-Hee Cho
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Abstract

This article chronicles the adoption of medical technology in twentieth-century Korea. The author suggests that the structure of the present health care delivery system has relied predominantly on small clinic practice and has resulted in a shortage of highly capitalized hospitals and a maldistribution of modern technology. In addition, the author argues that medical practice in small unconnected clinics and hospitals isolate physicians from academic medicine and hamper research. Finally, the highly decentralized structure of Korean medicine is a weak basis for controlling the diffusion of medical technology and leaves most acquisition judgments in the hands of individual hospital owners.

Type
Special Section: Health Care Systems and the Diffusion of Technology, Part II
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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