Information Technology Usage to Improve the Perceived Quality of Healthcare Service

Abstract

The concept of Health Related Quality of Life and its determinants have evolved since the 1980s. Although many researchers have published articles of technology usage in hospitals and the installation of technology based healthcare system, the research about applying the information technology to improve the patients’ perceived quality of healthcare services is still limited. In general, services are deeds, processes and performances that are essentially concerns of the consumer. The healthcare service quality depends on tangible factors, such as equipments, facilities, and the quality of hospital staff and also the intangible ones. The main purpose of this work is to establish new model and find out the contribution of information technology to enhance the patients’ perceived quality of healthcare service. We attempted to examine the main information technology related factors in 3 aspects, namely quality of information, the technology accessibility and the community that can improve patients’ perceived quality of healthcare services. Offline and online questionnaires were used to measure the patients’ perceived quality and were distributed to 384 people in 2 countries, Laos and South Korea. A principle component analysis and multiple regressions were used to verify our model. Results show that the use of information technology has partial positive effect on patient-physician interaction in both countries. However, patient knowledge and patient autonomy which are the 2 dimensions of patient-physician interaction has significant positive effect on patients’ perceived quality of healthcare service.