Abstract
Objective After the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Chinese hospitals
and health information technology (HIT) vendors collaborated to provide comprehensive
information technology support for pandemic prevention and control. This study aims
to describe the responses from the health information systems (HIS) to the COVID-19
pandemic and provide empirical evidence in the application of emerging health technologies
in China.
Methods This observational descriptive study utilized a nationally representative, cross-sectional
survey of hospitals in China (N = 1,014) from 30 provincial administrative regions across the country. Participants
include hospital managers, hospital information workers, and health care providers.
Results Among all the responses, the most popular interventions and applications include
expert question-and-answer sessions and science popularization (61.74%) in online
medical consultation, online appointment registration (58.97%) in online medical service,
and remote consultation (75.15%) in telehealth service. A total of 63.71% of the participating
hospitals expanded their fever clinics during the pandemic, 15.38% hospitals used
new or upgraded mobile ward rounds systems, and 44.68% hospitals applied online self-service
systems. Challenges and barriers include protecting network information security (57.00%)
since some hospitals experienced cybersecurity incidents. 71.79% participants hope
to shorten wait time and optimize the treatment process. Health care workers experienced
increased amount of work during the pandemic, while hospital information departments
did not experience significant changes in their workload.
Conclusion In the process of fighting against the COVID-19, hospitals have widely used traditional
and emerging novel HITs. These technologies have strengthened the capacity of prevention
and control of the pandemic and provided comprehensive information technology support
while also improving accessibility and efficiency of health care delivery.
Keywords
health information system - implementation - informatics - health information exchange
- COVID-19 - artificial intelligence - telehealth - health care delivery
