Research On The I-P-O Relationship Model Of Virtual Research Teams In Large General Hospitals

Virtual research teams are a new type of research groups based on multiple research subjects and exchange between them, and the subjects cooperate to attain common goals. Since the late 20th century, modern communications and networks have been advanced rapidly, and discipline intercourse and research topics have been more and more complicated. As a result, research teams are established and run beyond single research institutions, and virtualized research has now become an important topic of investigation.Large general hospitals provide medical care and teaching, and play crucial roles in medical research. Currently, medical research requires high levels of discipline intercourse, coordination and cooperation between researchers and laboratories. Large, multi-center, evidence-based medical researches usually require many medical institutions, particularly, clinical institutions to participate. Due to these factors, modern medical research is characterized by a considerable scale and spatiotemporal distribution. Hence, research management in large general hospitals involves cooperation and coordination of multiple research teams based on information technology.In the present study, we analyzed 47 articles on virtual team research published from 1996 and 2007 in ABI/Inform Proquest, EBSCO and ScienceDirect databases, and obtained 7 important parameters for the input-process-output (I-P-O) model to establish a preliminary I-P-O relationship model. Based on the model, we designed a questionnaire to survey the significance of relationships among these parameters. The questionnaire was administered in 100 researchers from large general hospitals, and further analyzed the relationships among these 7 parameters according to the researchers' feedback to obtain a comprehensive model to reflect the relationships among these parameters. According to the model, in the management of virtual research teams, progress management on AC (Action) is not so important as in traditional management of real research teams, and progress management is replaced by effective intervention on solid points and communication frameworks of virtual research groups. The present study provides a new management tool for program development, management and assessment for virtual research teams from large general hospitals.