CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION
6.2 Limitations and Implications of Future Research
especially in remote areas, since it can reduce the number of required resources and provide more convenience to hospitals and patients.
In our research, in order to make the service process more efficient and improve the performance of whole service delivery system, we discussed the factors that influence the internal processes of a delivery system. By studying related literature, we build our research model to measure the factors that may impact the performance of delivery system and, in doing so, divided the whole delivery service system into four parts: (1) the support process which includes training and IT, (2) the IT and non-IT service quality of healthcare staffs, (3) the communication within the whole e-Health service team, and (4) customer quality action. To test the proposed hypotheses, we carried out group interviews to gather useful insights about healthcare delivery services; and, after a series of measurement assessments and a cross-case analyses, we found many of our hypotheses d to be valid.
Through our research, we found that support processes can influence the service quality of employee and that communication is the most important factor in the delivery of service—more specifically, the diagonal, upward, downward, and horizontal communication within the organization. Through careful analysis, we have shown that these factors have a great impact on the e-Health delivery system.
Final, we give some suggests for each departments:
• A1: To enhance training support and IT support, and their diagonal communication.
• A2: To enhance IT support.
• A3: To enhance IT support, and their communication within organization.
• A4: To enhance their diagonal communication.
6.2 Limitations and Implications of Future Research
In our study, we evaluated our measurements by group interviews and organizing weekly meeting minutes. For future research, we hope in the future, through our lasting research and cooperate with NTUH, we could extend our research to discuss whether employee service quality could influence patients‘ satisfaction quality or not.
The service quality can be investigated from two categories, IT related service quality and non-IT related service quality.
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As to IT-related service quality, Bates (2000) mentioned healthcare staff can use information technologies to prevent medication errors and to improve their service quality. In our research, healthcare staff would use IT to record patient data, provide tele-consultation through remote-area devices, and provide patients with their own IT-analyzed health reports. Additionally, should patients consult the healthcare staff about IT device related problems, the healthcare staff would be sufficiently trained enough to provide a correct answer for them. Since these services are supported by IT, employee service quality is thus directly correlated to IT related service quality; if healthcare staff provide good service quality using IT, patients will feel more confident in the not only the service supported by IT related devices, but the whole IT- integrated system itself (Nagel & Cilliers, 1990).
Regarding with non-IT related service quality, Eysenbach (2001) proposed that the most important goal for e-Health services is the control and alleviation of disease.
In our research, patient relief is the most important goal that hospital staffs care about.
Healthcare staff employee training has focused largely on providing good service quality to patients; for instance, nurses would reply patients‘ questions using their professional knowledge, respond with good attitudes, and so on. This is what we define as non-IT related service quality. If healthcare staffs do not provide good service quality to patients, for example, not being able to provide correct answers to questions, patients may lose confidence in e-Health services. We believe that the ability of healthcare staffs to provide good non-IT related service quality directly influences patient satisfaction quality and assurance. These two propositions can be further examined in the future.
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Appendix A: Question List of the Group Interview (Chinese)
DOCTORS:
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Appendix B: Interview Contents and Framework
Application (Chinese)
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註: Level 分級 0~21%: Low
21%~40%: Low to Medium 41%~60%: Medium
61%~80%: Medium to High 81%~100%: High
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註 1:括號內的數字表示 需改進的缺失數。
註 2: Level 分級 0~20%: High
21%~40%: Medium to High 41%~60%: Medium
61%~80%: Low to Medium 81%~100%: Low
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註: Level 分級 0~1: Low 2~3: Medium >3: High
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註 3: Level 分級(T 表 Total Score) T<1 : Low
1≤ T<2 : Low to Medium 2≤ T<3 : Medium
3≤ T<4 : Medium to High 4≤ T<5 : High
註 1: ○表示一分 △表示半分 Χ表示零分 註 2: 會議頻率 一週一次訂為 O 兩週一次訂為△
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註 1: ○表示一分 △表示半分 Χ表示零分
註 3: Level 分級 0~20% : Low
21%~40% : Low to Medium 41%~60% : Medium
61%~80% : Medium to High 81%~100% : High
註 2: 會議頻率 一週一次訂為 O 兩週一次訂為△
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註 2: Level 分級 0~20%: Low
21%~40%: Low to Medium 41%~60%: Medium
61%~80%: Medium to High 81%~100%: High
註 1: ○表示一分 △表示半分 Χ表示零分
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註 2: Level 分級 0~20% : Low
21%~40% : Low to Medium 41%~60% : Medium
61%~80% : Medium to High 81%~100% : High
註 1: ○表示一分 △表示半分 Χ表示零分
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註 2: Level 分級 0~20%: Low
21%~40%: Low to Medium 41%~60%: Medium
61%~80%: Medium to High 81%~100%: High
註 1: ○表示一分 △表示半分 Χ表示零分