Medical Information Sharing and Integration can prevent repeating lab tests and reduce wasting medical resources. Besides, it also provides comprehensive information to healthcare professionals regarding patients?history helping them to make accurate diagnosis and offer proper treatment to patients as well. Since 2005, Taipei City Hospital started the project named, Medical Information Sharing Plan of Hospitals and Clinics (MISPHC). The project is to collaborate with Public Health Referral Policy and to encourage medical information sharing in order to avoid repeating lab tests of the same patient in different hospital. The project also allows contract-clinics to assess medical information in Taipei City Hospital to improve healthcare qualities in Taipei.
There are two purposes of this study; one is to understand clinic physicians?
attitude and benefit cognitions toward MISPH. The other purpose is to understand the achievements and the drawback of the MISPH from physicians? point of views in order to improve the project for further wide-range promotion. The study method used an in-depth interview with nine clinic physicians and it has the results as the three points followed:
1. The physicians believe MISPH has benefits in three ways ?firstly, it profits the public by increasing the healthcare qualities. Secondly, the benefit to the clinic is to stimulate the interaction between clinics and hospitals. Finally, the advantage to the hospitals is to boost the public confident toward hospital. However, there is a shortcoming the physicians concern and it is the security of patient
confidentialities.
2. The interviewees mentioned the increase of patient numbers, the trust of the public toward physicians and avoid patient lost during
transferring are the benefit cognitions they have toward MISPH.
3. As to the functions and the drawbacks of MISPH, the physicians agree that the medical information should be a hundred percent digitalized and shared among hospitals and clinics; yet the instabilities and complications of the information system maybe the only drawbacks.
