Does the physician order-entry system increase the revenue of a general hospital?
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine whether the physician order-entry system (POE) could increase the outpatient and inpatient revenue of hospitals.


METHODS
We analyzed the inpatient and outpatient revenue data of all general hospitals (212) in South Korea obtained from the Korean National Health Insurance Corporation (KNHIC) during the period from 1996 to 1999 using the mixed model for repeated measure data.


RESULTS
Analysis of the 4-years' panel data showed that both outpatient and inpatient revenues increased significantly after POE introduction. The hospital characteristics significantly influencing inpatient revenue were the number of beds, number of physicians and the tertiary status of a hospital; whereas those for outpatient revenue were the number of beds, number of physicians, the private status of a hospital, the tertiary status of a hospital and the urban status of a hospital.


CONCLUSIONS
The revenues from both outpatients and inpatients were found to be increased after the introduction of the POE, while controlling for population size, competition, income, hospital location, hospital size, tertiary status and public status.
Park
Woong-Sub
WS
Department of Preventive Medicine and Public health, College of Medicine, Kwandong University, Gangneung, South Korea.
Kim
Joon S
JS
Chae
Young Moon
YM
Yu
Seung-Hum
SH
Kim
Chang-Yup
CY
Kim
Sang-A
SA
Jung
Sang Hyuk
SH
D005377:Financial Management, Hospital; D017722:Hospital Charges / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006751:Hospital Information Systems / Q000191:economics; D006769:Hospitals, General / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D007723:Korea; D008485:Medical Audit; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010045:Outpatients