International Vietnam Russian Eye Hospital and Benefit of Using Information Technology

International Vietnam Russian Eye Hospital and benefit of using Information Technology

Duong Chi Dat

IFY Student 2011

International Vietnam Russian Eye Hospital (VRH) is a private Russian based hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam, using latest technologies in diagnosis and treatment with service of ophthalmologists coming from Fyodorov Hospital, Russia. The hospital was established in February, 2009 and since then has gained a strong position in the healthcare market in Northern Vietnam (VRH, 2011) Reputation and credit of the hospital and number of patients coming to it has dramatically increased since establishment, thanks to the quality of service it provides and the efficiency of applying information technology to the hospital's everyday work. The purpose of this report is to analyze how the hospital has benefited from using information technology (IT) in terms of revenue, working efficiency and ensuring patients' satisfaction.

Method

Participants

Face to face and telephone interviews were conducted with the hospital's management team members including General Manager, IT Manager, Head of Customer Care Department, Chairman and a laser surgeon. All the interviews were focused on how the hospital has benefited from using IT from different points of views.

Materials

Annual reports for the years 2009 and 2010 including income statements of the first two months in 2011 provided by the General Manager were used to analyze the growth rate of VRH's revenue. Statistics based on questionnaires provided by the Customer Care Department were used to analyze how information technology has contributed to reputation of the hospital and satisfying its patients.

Results

Revenue trend of VRH

The revenue of the hospital has increased from nearly 1 billion VND per month since its establishment in February, 2009 to 3.8 billion VND in February, 2011 (see Appendix No.2) and the number of patients coming to it for different purposes has raised from nearly 20 per day in February, 2009 to more than 150 per day in February, 2011 (A.Sarokin, personal communication, March 24, 2011)

This dramatic increase is due to several reasons, one of them is applying IT to promote and deliver hospital's image to potential clients with help of online advertisement tools (A.Sarokin, personal communication, March 24, 2011). According to a survey conducted by the Customer Care Department, online promotion contributes 45.5% to the overall number of hospital's patients (see Appendix 3)

IT applications which impact on the working efficiency within the hospital

VRH currently uses hospital management software named MedSoft, which has been proven to be efficient in storing profiles of patients in the hospital's database, making it easy to manage all the diagnosis and treatment processes (T.Nguyen, personal communication, March 26, 2011)

D.Magaramov (personal communication, March 26, 2011) said that all machines used for diagnosis and treatment in the hospital are the latest models with latest software installed to guarantee the highest quality of diagnosis and treatment processes. The most remarkable is newly imported from Germany MEL 80 Excimer Laser surgery machine. Produced by Zeiss Corporation, MEL 80 meets all criteria to be the best laser operating system currently. Thanks to CRS Master and VisuMax programs installed inside, Mel 80 allows doctors to create truly individual treatment programs and to operate with great accuracy and less invasively.

IT applications used for ensuring patients' satisfaction

T.T.Nguyen (personal communication, March 28, 2011) pointed out that electronic mail is among the most common tools being used to keep in touch with patients, which help the hospital to interact with them regardless the difference in time and locations while other applications such as instant message and telephone are used for fast communications in order to capture and respond the patients' desires as well as to update for them about the promotion programs and new services of the hospital.

The website of VRH on World Wide Web is another efficient tool used for interacting with patients and ensuring their satisfaction. It was created as the hospital established in order to update useful and necessary information for anyone interested in using its service and simplify all procedures for patients. The site uses the latest Web 2.0 technology with friendly tools so that patients can register for diagnosis as well as make dates and consulate with doctors online (T.T.Nguyen, personal communication, March 28, 2011). According to the hospital's policy, if customers register online before they come, they will save their time by not having to stay in queue and wait (T.Nguyen, personal communication, March 26, 2011)

Discussion

Benefit of revenue

Revenue of the hospital has risen dramatically from establishment in February, 2009 to February, 2011 and VRH has now become one of the best medical service providers in Northern Vietnam, although it was new and had to face harsh competition from variety of opponents. This could not have been done without applying information technology to promote and advertise for the hospital, which actually began before its establishment. The most common strategy of the hospital's management team in using online tools to attract patients is to organize PR and advertisement campaigns on online newspapers along with consultation programs on popular health forums. This has been proven to be quite efficient, as Vietnam currently has about 25 million Internet users, according to International Telecommunication Union (ITU, 2010) many of whom tend to go to online newspapers everyday for updating the news as well as online health forums to look for advices and consultation from experts about health problems they or their relatives may have. As that number of Internet users makes up 27.1% of national population (ITU, 2010), they are group of people who most likely seem to have eye diseases and appear to be potential clients of the hospital. Additionally, online advertisement is the cheapest but also the most efficient advertisement type, according to Chairman of VRH, therefore, helps the hospital increasing revenue and decreasing cost.

Benefit of working efficiency

VRH is considered