Survey and analysis on digital construction of primary hospitals in Guizhou Province

Abstract

To investigate the utilization status and awareness of digital hospital construction among medical staff in critical care department of primary hospitals, so as to promote the process of digital medical health. One to two doctors and nurses (in the department on that day) from public hospitals in 88 counties and urban areas in 9 cities of Guizhou Province were enrolled of field investigation. The questionnaires form were filled in on-site and sorted out and analyzed by special personnel. A total of 297 medical staff from the department of critical care medicine of 146 hospitals were included. All the questionnaires were filled in with their real names, including 152 doctors and 145 nurses. There were 24 class III Grade A hospitals and 122 class II and all the hospitals had implemented digital information management. The awareness of hospital digital information management system was generally low among the surveyed medical staff, and the awareness of hospital information system (HIS) was the highest (86.5%), followed by laboratory information management system (LIS, 41.4%) and image archiving and communication system (PACS, 40.7%). The awareness of hospital management system (HERP) was the lowest (7.7%). The total number of remote consultations conducted by hospitals using big data Internet was 25 428 times in 2020, with a median of 24.5 (88.0, 240.0) times in each hospital. From 2018 to 2020, the total number of patients admitted to the intensive care unit of the hospital was 50 473, 57 565 and 57 907, respectively, of which the number of patients over 65 years old accounted for 37.47%, 41.26% and 43.31%, respectively (all P > 0.05). There were 4 242 cases of remote consultation using big data Internet in the department every year, with a median of 257.50 (96.50, 958.25) cases. 12.12% of the departments had independent critical monitoring systems, and 8.75% of them could capture data automatically to form tables. 96.30% of the medical staff participated in systematic and professional training on basic knowledge, basic theory and basic medical care skills through the Internet platform, and the number of meetings, studies and training in the provinces and prefectures were 282 and 357 times per year, respectively. More than 90% of the departments initiated remote consultation, arranged referral or admitted patients who had improved status after treatment in superior hospitals through the Internet platform. Most of the patients (69.02%) were from the lower level of the hospital. The total number of out-patient consultations was 2 959 times per year, with a median of 296 (185 473) times. 54.79% of the departments had fixed service villages, and 28.08% of the departments had fixed service population. The median furthest visit distance was 52.5 (30.0, 80.0) kilometers, and the median average visit distance was 30.0 (20.0, 50.0) kilometers. 54.88% of medical staff believed that the biggest difficulties encountered during house visits were insufficient energy and too large service groups or regions. More than 90% of medical staff had been exposed to cloud learning and cloud training, and most of the surveyed medical staff believed that cloud learning and cloud training greatly improved medical service capacity and service efficiency of medical institutions (71.04% and 67.01%, respectively). Meanwhile, they believe that "Internet+health big data" projects from various aspects brought advantage to medical institutions, but there are also low utilization rate of Internet medical equipment by village doctors, low acceptance for telemedicine and mobile hospitals by farmers. Guizhou public hospitals have implementation of digital information management at the grass-roots level, the surveyed health care workers have a relatively low awareness of the digital information management system, hospital use big data Internet for remote consultation is uneven, intensive care medicine is a clinical discipline used in most remote consultation information system, and can complete two-way referrals. In the past three years, the discipline operation showed an upward trend year by year. Medical staff use artificial intelligence devices such as cloud learning and training to improve medical service capacity and efficiency. The digital transformation of primary hospitals is being continuously improved.