The Impact of B2C E-Commerce on Hospital Productivity: An Empirical Study in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Mu-Yi Huang, 黃慕宜
• Other Authors: Shin-Yuan Hung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2001
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/02536576047886429312

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 資訊管理學系 === 89 === With the maturity and popularity of the Internet and Web technologies, E-Commerce (or Electronic Commerce) has become a new and appealing competitive weapon for the business. Many organizations adopt B2C (Business to Consumer) E-commerce to raise their productivity and gain their competitive advantage. In 1994, the implementation of the National Health Insurance in Taiwan, hospitals were faced with keen competition and sought the benefits of E-Commerce. However, we know little about the actual value of E-Commerce for organizational productivity. The purposes of this study are twofold. First, services provided by the current hospitals’ Web sites would be surveyed. Second, the impact of B2C E-Commerce on the hospital productivity would be examined. Our subjects were those hospitals on the list form 1997 to 2000 announced by the Department of Health, Taiwan. They included 13 medical centers, 56 regional hospitals, and 50 local hospitals. This study surveyed the services provided by hospital’s Web sites and analyzed the secondary data obtained from the Health Statistics Annual. The results indicate that the larger-size hospitals established Web sites and provided the online register systems significantly earlier. Additionally, results from ratio analysis, regression analysis, and DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) analysis could be summarized as following. First, comparing with before the implementations of the Web sites and the online register systems, the ratios of “the person-time of hospitalization divided by the number of hospital beds”, “the person-time of hospitalization divided by the number of physician”, and “the person-time of emergency treatment and outpatient services divided by the number of physicians” increase after the implementations. Second, the coefficients of the independent variables, including “sickbed”, “physician”, and “nurse”, on the hospital productivity change significantly over time. Finally, results from the DEA analysis show that hospital productivity significantly increases after the implementation of the Web sites and the online register systems. Managerial implications from the results are also provided.