IT-Enabled Revenue Cycle Transformation in Resource-Constrained Hospitals: A Collaborative Digital Options Inquiry
通过在一家财务紧张的乡村医院开展行动研究，展示了资源受限医院如何通过选择性投资低成本IT解决方案来改善财务绩效，并提出了数字期权探究方法以帮助理解和转型业务流程。
Although hospitals increasingly consider solutions based on information technolgy (IT) for revenue cycle management, contextual constraints and numerous IT investment alternatives make it difficult to identify and realize appropriate solutions. Thus far, however, health IT theory has been silent on how IT can support financial and administrative purposes within hospitals, focusing instead on IT for clinical support. Against this backdrop, we report on an action research project involving IT-enabled revenue cycle transformation in a financially strapped rural hospital. Our research contributes to health IT theory by expanding the discourse to include revenue cycle transformation and by demonstrating how resource-constrained hospitals can improve their financial performance through selective investments in low-cost IT solutions across the revenue cycle. We also contribute to action research methodology by generalizing our interventions to propose digital options inquiry—a systematic approach to business process transformation that combines digital options theory with diagnostic process mapping—to help researchers and practitioners jointly understand and transform business processes.