This study investigates how information technology (IT) helped hospitals in mainland China better respond to the outbreak of the pandemic.
Understanding how hospitals can continue providing services in an effective manner under quarantine situations is important.
The authors of this study conducted a content analysis of pages published on the websites of the Top 50 hospitals in mainland China between January 22, 2020 and February 21, 2020. They analyzed 368 pages that the hospitals published during the initial days of the COVID-19 pandemic to identify common themes related to the utilization of IT by these hospitals in response to the pandemic’s outbreak.
They identified five focal themes across the webpages published by the hospitals during our study period including: (1) popular medical science education; (2) digitalized hospital processes; (3) knowledge management for medical professionals; (4) telemedicine; and (5) new IT initiatives for healthcare services. They also found that Chinese hospitals spent greater effort in promoting popular medical science education in the initial stages of the study period and more on telemedicine in the latter stages.
