Assessing the Early Stage of eHealth Adoption: A Case Study From a Community Hospital in Thailand

Assessing the Early Stage of eHealth Adoption: A Case Study From a Community Hospital in Thailand

Noppon Choosri, Waritsara Jitmun, Pathathai Na Lumpoon, Supavas Sitthithanasakul, Sompob Saralamba, Krid Thongbunjob, Pongsatorn Chumsang
Copyright: © 2022 |Pages: 9
DOI: 10.4018/IJRQEH.309992
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Abstract

In this paper, the authors implement and determine the success the eHealth adoption for queue management when it was first deployed for a community hospital setting in Thailand. The electronic queue system was first implemented to improve conventional operations; then extensive evaluations were conducted to measure the effectiveness for each stakeholder. The healthcare staff shared a common perception that the new system could reduce their workload and increase the efficacy of queue fairness. The overall patient satisfaction and actual waiting time patients spent at the nurse interview station improved significantly. The majority of the patients agreed that the notification for attention from the computerized system is more effective. The community healthcare has strong potential to adopt the eHealth system. Being more automated enabled a reduced burden of administration jobs and significantly reduced waiting times for patients. Patients responded that they had greater satisfaction after the introduction of the electronic queue system.
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The Case Study

This research was conducted in cooperation with the Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) clinic at Kohka Hospital, Lampang Province in Thailand. Kohkha Hospital is a 120-bed community hospital that serves the local population. With a high volume of NCD patients, and because the nature of the treatment requires patients to revisit the clinic regularly, the hospital operates the clinic independently from the Out-Patient Department (OPD). Most of the procedural operations are manual and paper based. Figure 1 depicts the general environment of the clinic. The clinic serves approximately 100–200 patients each day. For each visit, patients are required to attend three stations, which are prescreening, nurse interview and doctor examination. Figure 2 outlines the conventional system used before the introduction of the electronic.

Figure 1.

General environment of the clinic

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