Deployment and Evaluation of the Self-Pay Dental Expenses Information Management System for Clinics

[[abstract]]健保的總額管制限制了牙醫診所的收入，但新的自費療程使牙醫診所有了成長的契機，牙科治療項目中有很多屬於自費醫療服務，諸如人工植牙、假牙贗復、齒顎矯正、雷射牙周、美容貼片..等等。消費者對牙齒的需求從過去單純的「疼痛解除」，像是蛀牙引起的牙痛，慢慢演變成「功能需求」，甚至到現在的「美觀需求」，許多人都會希望自己開口就有一口健康漂亮的牙齒，而在眾多競爭者環伺中，如何讓消費者接受自費治療，就需要來探討一下自費型患者選擇就醫因素了。 近年來由於資訊科技普及與電腦軟硬體的進步，已有愈來愈多的醫療機構採用醫療資訊系統，來提高醫療、行政人員的工作效率、改善醫療作業流程、減少人為錯誤、降低醫院成本支出，進而朝向全面無紙化的目標邁進。而牙科產業是所有產業中，資訊技術發展最謹慎、最保守的一個產業，由於牙科醫療產業治療流程複雜且專業、成員所處理的事務也大都攸關人命，因此穩定、可靠的資訊系統是醫療產業資訊化最重視的問題之一。 本研究是利用資訊科技與醫療結合，導入一套自費資訊管理系統程式，透過質性研究之實驗式觀察法方式，蒐集相關資料，並藉由紮根理論，進行相關資料之分析，經由資訊系統了解牙醫診所對病患所做的醫療服務完整紀錄，使牙醫診所得到病患服務/品質問題之資訊，導入牙醫診所之經營改革，納入績效管理，以提昇牙醫診所經管之效率與效能，並依病患需求，提供客製化之服務/品質項目，並發展長期病患關係管理。[[abstract]]The cap set by the national health insurance regulation limits the income of dental clinics, but new self-pay treatments provide dental clinics the opportunity to grow. There are various dental treatments that are under the self-pay category such as dental implants, prosthesis, orthodontics, laser periodontitis,cosmetic veneer etc. Consumers’ demand for teeth also shift from the simple ‘pain relief’, like a toothache caused by a tooth caries, and slowly evolved into a ‘functional requirement’, and recently more popular, an ‘aesthetic requirement’. Many people will want to have healthy and beautiful teeth, and in an environment with many competitors, to understand how to let consumers accept treatments at their own expense, there is the need to explore the reasons behind the selection of medical treatments for self-pay patients. In the recent years, due to the popularity of information technology along with advances in computer hardware and software, there are an increasing number of health care organizations adopting medical information systems to improve health care; improving the working efficiency of the administrative staff, the improvement of medical operational procedure, reducing human error and hospital costs expenditure, and thus moves toward a comprehensive paperless goal. The dental industry, amongst all other industries, is the most cautious and most conservative in information technology development, since the treatment process is complex and specialized, matters to be dealth with are also largely of lives and deaths. Therefore a stable, reliable medical information system is one of the most important issues to address for the informatization of the medical industry. This research is utilizing the Information Technology (IT) in conjunction with the medical information, deploying a self-pay dental expenses information management system, through a case study of qualitative depth interviews, collecting relevant information, and by using grounded theory to analyze relevant information. Through information systems understanding the complete patient records of medical services made by the dental clinic, so that the clinic can obtain inforation about patient service / quality problem, import management reforms for the dental clinic, bring in performance management to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the management of the dental clinics, and in accordance with the needs the patients, providing customized service / quality projects in order to develop long-term patient relationship management[[note]]碩