Impacts Of Information Technology On The Efficiency Of Outpatient Service

In recent years,information technology has affected our social system and economic structure with an unprecedented breadth and depth.The traditional medical and health industry has also been impacted and gradually transformed into "smart".The new generation of health information technology(HIT)has provided new opportunities to address the problem of unmatched supply and demand and low service efficiency in the medical industry.As one of its typical representatives,the smart outpatient procedure system aims to solve the problems of "three longs and one short"(namely long registration time,long waiting time,long waiting time,short medical time)and other issues and improve the efficiency of outpatient service.However,due to the huge investment,operation and maintenance and use costs,the actual adoption is not widespread,so more research is needed to explain its value.Although many scholars have previously been concerned about the impact of information technology on medical services,there are still some differences and uncertainties in the impact of the results and the mechanism of action,especially in the context of China's medical care,the relative quantitative analysis of new smart medical systems is lacking.Therefore,this paper uses a hospital in Hangzhou(Z Hospital)as a research context to try to supplement the related literature.Specifically,this study separately describes the positive impact of the smart outpatient flow system on outpatient service efficiency from the perspective of patients and hospitals,and explains the value of this new HIT.First,conduct field surveys through field observations and interviews to understand the specific functions of the smart outpatient flow system,portray the process reengineering of the outpatient flow,and initially analyze the changing trends of relevant data indicators.Then use the records from 2011 to 2013 in the hospital database to conduct an empirical test,specifically from two aspects:1)Analyze whetherthe "three shorts and one short" problem has been effectively mitigated at the individual level;2)Analyze whether patient flow is optimized at the organizational level.The results show that the introduction of the smart outpatient flow system can shorten the "three longs" and increase the "one short",improve the efficiency of patient's visit,and the new HIT exerts a positive effect;at the same time,a rapid and uniform patient flow is formed,the service efficiency of outpatients is improved,and the optimization of resource allocation plays an intermediary role,explaining the mechanism of the new HIT in optimizing patient flow.This article not only proves the value of the new medical information technology from multiple perspectives,but also makes innovative explorations on the mechanisms that affect medical service efficiency,enriches relevant theories.It also provides hospital administrators with advice on IT deployment,and promotes doctors and patients to use new HIT in actual medical procedures,which has important practical significance.