Research On Telemedicine Investment Decision Of Hospital Under Patients' Medical Choice

The medical resources in China are unevenly distributed and the level of medical development is unequal.Therefore,some chronic patients can't get enough medical resources for a long time,especially those in the remote areas.Telemedicine can increase the access to health care,is gradually being accepted by the public.With the rapid development of telemedicine,investment in telemedicine can both benefit patients and hospital,but it also brings new challenges to hospital managers in telemedicine investment.Two-stage medical service supply chain is studied to analyze the influence of patients' choice behavior telemedicine investment,and give some suggestion about decision-making factors for hospitals.Firstly,the decision making of telemedicine investment in single tier hospitals is studied.Considering the circular market with two homogeneous large hospital,analyze patients' choice behavior before and after the introduction of telemedicine.Utility models are built under different medical choices,according to the spatial competition model.Taking the maximization of total utility as the goal,the decision model of telemedicine investment is built,and the optimal level of telemedicine investment and the investment price are obtained.Through numerical analysis,it is found that hospitals can improve the awareness and recognition of telemedicine,so that the investment in telemedicine can be twice the result with half the effort.Telemedicine has little influence on patients whose perceived psychological distance cost is lower,so as a startup,the hospital may focus on the patient who are in remote area,or physical inability to travel,lack of transportation,gradually increase the types of patients.Since hospital needs to attract patients with low price strategy,which resulting in lower profitability,the government may consider appropriate subsidies to encourage hospitals to introduce telemedicine.Secondly,the decision making of telemedicine investment in multi-tier hospitals is studied.Considering the circular market with two homogeneous large hospitals and two homogeneous community hospitals,analyze the change of patients' choice behavior.Utility models are built according to different medical choices.With the objective of maximizing total utility,the decision model of telemedicine investment is built to solve the optimal level of telemedicine investment and the investment price.Numerical analysis shows that,for community hospitals,it is possible to increase the market share when they partner with big hospitals bringing in telemedicine.For hospitals,hospitals can use low-cost strategies to attract patients.The conclusion of this thesis offers a new idea for the study of telemedicine investment,and also provides a reference for hospital investment in telemedicine.So important theoretical and practical value is shown in this thesis.