区域医疗信息化降低医疗费用的作用机制研究——来自上海闵行某医院的证据

Study on How Regional Health Information System Saves Medical Expenses:Evidence from a Hospital in Minhang District, Shanghai

自新医改以来,我国从国家层面提出建立区域医疗卫生信息系统的要求。对上海闵行某医院的抽样分析结果表明:在控制了人口学特征、诊断医生等因素后,有电子健康档案比没有电子健康档案人群的门诊总费用低,且具有结构性差异;通过改变管理者和医疗机构之间的信息结构,区域医疗信息技术有助于缓解委托代理问题,控制医生的供给诱导需求行为,从而降低医疗成本。

Since the new reform of health care, China requests the development of Regional Health Information System(RHIS) at the national level. This article's sample is made up of outpatients' records in the medicine department of a hospital in Minhang district, Shanghai. We find that:(1) After controlling patients' demographical characters and doctors' fixed effect, the group with electronic health records has lower outpatient expenditures than the other group significantly;(2) this difference can be explained by the supervision effect, which means by changing the information structure between regulators and providers, RHIS can prevent agency problems in terms of supply-induced demand and thus save patients' medical expenses.