Economic analysis of order communication system for hospitals / 예방의학회지

Hospitals have been very susceptable to changes in external environment. Accordingly, they have been experiencing great financial difficulty due to low insurance rates and increasing competition. As a remedy, hospitals have attempted to use computer in a strategic manner. Such system is called strategic information system (SIS) , and order communication system (OCS) is an example of SIS in hospital setting. While OCS has known to be effective in reducing waiting time for outpatients, many hospitals are reluctant to introduce this system mainly because there are no real data or methods for justifying the cost of the system. Cost-benefit analysis has been traditionally used for such purpose, but this method deals with limited portion of benefits and therefore not very useful for analyzing the economic feasibility of SIS. In this paper, information economics tools which expand cost with value was used to analyze the economic feasibility of OCS. To assist the analysis, financial simulation model was developed using simulation package, called IFPS (Interactive Financial Planning System).

A Development and Application of Decision Support System for Cost Analysis / 예방의학회지

Hospitals are experiencing an increasing amount of financial difficulty due to government control of hospital rates since national health insurance has been implemented. The decision support system(DSS) was developed to provide cost and revenue information for the services rendered by each department in an effect to reduce costs. This information may be used to identify the causes of financial loss if cost exceeds revenue and to conduct variance analysis or portfolio analysis to improve financial situation of hospitals. The DSS was developed using a micro-mainframe interface approach where the mainframe computer collects and summarizes daily cost and revenue data and the micro computer computes the cost for each department. The significances of this paper are to determine the cost allocation basis and methods which are suitable to Korean situation and to apply DSS technology to the cost analysis.