Research on Financial Management and Information Construction of Public Hospitals ()
1. Introduction
Public hospitals are the most important part of China’s medical system. With the continuous improvement of people’s living standards, people’s requirements for public hospitals are also increasing; especially the hospital environment, medical quality and service standards have higher requirements. In the face of decentralized data, the use of information technology to collect various data will enable the management to make better decisions. Information construction has an indispensable effect on the internal fine management of the hospital.
The financial management of public hospitals is one of the core management of public hospitals. Under the background of the new medical reform, the hospital’s income has been affected by both the increase in costs and the decrease in government financial investment. There is more need to strengthen the information construction of financial management, improve the level of hospital financial management, strengthen internal control, rationally allocate various funds, and further improve the efficiency of the use of funds, so that the hospital’s economic management runs smoothly. Especially after the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020, the interconnection of information between medical information and non-medical businesses has made a vital contribution to the overall management and control of the epidemic. As a result, the degree of information construction within the hospital will also greatly affect the future development of the hospital.
2. The Importance of Information Construction of Public Hospitals to Hospital Financial Management
The main goal of the public hospital-based medical system is to maximize the benefits of socialization. With the new round of health care reform in China, the decision-making level of health care reform management has higher requirements for the accuracy and refinement of various public hospitals’ financial data. The financial data model extracted and sorted manually is difficult to adapt to the new form. The importance of automated information technology for continuous and accurate acquisition of financial management data has become increasingly apparent. Only by continuing the comprehensive information construction of hospitals can we finally meet the large amount of data needs of the higher-level medical reform decision-making departments. At the same time, the more accurate the financial management performance evaluation of public hospitals based on the information feedback, the more accurate the hospital financial management level can be improved. In the daily work management of public hospitals, on the one hand, information construction links the data of various departments of the hospital with financial data involving unit price, quantity, number of people, amount, ratio and other data indicators, and further strengthens the internal management and control of the hospital; On the one hand, information construction simplifies the process of patient payment, settlement and financial information inquiry and acquisition, and improves the patient’s experience of hospital services.
3. The Need of Public Hospital Financial Management for Information Construction
3.1. Financial Budget for Information Construction Needs
The latest medical reforms have stipulated the establishment of financial budgets for public hospitals. Under the requirements of reasonable management standards, the principles to be followed in all aspects of the financial budget of public hospitals have been specified in detail, and all income and expenditure items of the hospital must be included in the budget. Management, the income and expenditure of projects that have been budgeted cannot be changed and adjusted at will, which further clarifies and standardizes the financial management of the hospital. In the past, budget management divided the budget into larger modular management, which led to more emphasis on the profit and loss of the budget and the final surplus of funds in the financial management. The new medical reform plan clarifies the reasonable division of the financial budget rights and responsibilities of various departments, and forms the overall planning of hospital budget management on this basis. Hospital information technology can establish a financial budget management system that unifies the budgets of various departments on the information platform. The platform can feed back each other’s budget business data and release the latest regulations in a timely manner, making the budget work more refined, scientific and efficient.
3.2. Cost Management’s Demand for Information Construction
Hospital cost accounting is mainly to manage the resource and energy consumption in the operation of the hospital. The purpose is to reduce waste and reduce operating costs, thereby further reducing the economic burden of patients when seeking medical treatment, and ultimately reflecting the social welfare of public hospitals. The national public medical policy has corresponding regulations on the cost of public hospitals, requiring public hospitals to gradually establish and improve a full-cost accounting management system. The management performance evaluation indicators have a detailed correspondence to the cost accounting standards, target costs, and cost control methods of various medical services. However, in the actual implementation process, due to the asymmetric information of various business departments and the over-complex information extraction process, the actual cost management efficiency is often low. At the same time, the salary performance management of non-profit public hospitals requires full cost accounting, and the results of business operation cost accounting and cost control are reflected in salary performance. Among the many target requirements, it is even more necessary for information construction to provide information technology support for the refinement and systematization of cost management.
3.3. Performance Management’s Demand for Information Construction
Performance management is an important part of financial management. Through the performance appraisal system of hospital employees, cost accounting is linked to employee performance, and medical evaluation, quality control and labor efficiency are applied to daily work to stimulate employees’ enthusiasm for work. Information system is the key to hospital performance work. However, the current information construction of public hospitals in China is lagging behind, and the accuracy of hospital business system information is not high. As a result, there are still a lot of manual processing links in performance work, and the quality of work decreases. Future performance management needs to automatically collect and analyze various medical business data, dynamically analyze and calculate the performance of each department, and adjust the calculation model to obtain the best performance distribution. Long-term data analysis can provide planning suggestions for the adjustment of hospital performance management, and promote the good operation of hospital performance management.
3.4. Financial Decision-Making and Supervision Demand for Information Construction
Since the medical reform, the level of public hospitals’ operating objectives has generally been greatly improved, especially for hospital financial management decisions, which have high comprehensive requirements. It is necessary to implement refined control and management of public hospitals’ finances, including budgets, assets, costs, and Performance management, etc. This can optimize the effective allocation of various resources in the hospital and improve the efficiency of hospital operations. Effective decision-making in financial management requires the construction of hospital information. Information is the technical support for effective data. Only timely and accurate financial information can make effective decisions. The hospital’s supervision and management of financial data has long been decentralized and non-systematic in various business operation data, which leads to greater limitations in the supervision of financial management. Information construction is required to build data tables from scattered data. To the greatest extent, financial supervision and management personnel can intuitively and conveniently compare abnormal financial data, quickly find the root cause of the problem, and strengthen financial risk management (Pan, 2020).
4. Analysis of the Problems Existing in the Information Construction of Public Hospital Financial Management
4.1. The Comprehensive Information Construction of Public Hospitals Is Difficult and Difficult to Maintain
At present, although hospital information construction is being carried out in an active, orderly and rapid manner, and hospital staff and management personnel at all levels have fully realized the necessity and urgency of public hospital information construction, there is still a lack of in-depth information on the comprehensive information construction of hospitals. Thinking and a lot of research have also led to the difficulty of unified and coordinated planning for the hospital’s comprehensive information construction. Especially high-level public hospitals belong to general hospitals. There are many hospital business and logistics departments. Each business department involves a lot of information and data. The large-scale long-term comprehensive construction and debugging of the information system can be accurate and timely according to the needs of various management departments. And comprehensively reflect all the data directly. The lack of a professional information construction team also makes it difficult to maintain and update the information system in a timely manner according to requirements, and there is a lag in maintenance (Yao, 2021). It is difficult for financial management departments to integrate data and information in a timely manner by relying on manual labor, which reduces the efficiency and accuracy of financial information work.
4.2. The Function of the Financial Management Information System of Public Hospitals Is Not Perfect
The financial management information system plays a key role in the financial management of the hospital. Public hospitals have basically completed the establishment of the HIS system, which helps to collect statistics on various assets, expenses and consumables needed for medical treatment. Performance appraisal can also compare costs and expenditures to perform salary performance accounting based on the income and expenditure recorded in the system and the workload of the staff. But often the two important systems of financial management in public hospitals, the ERP system and the HIS system, have inconsistencies in the data coding standards of various systems, which results in some information differences and data cannot be docked (Huang, 2020). The financial information system and other information systems are operating independently of each other. Various types of system information cannot be shared. The problem of information islands between systems is serious, which severely restricts the development of financial management information.
4.3. The Software and Hardware Equipment Update of the Public Hospital Information System Is Lagging Behind
In the construction of public hospitals, in order to meet the increasing number of patients for medical services and the development of disciplines, the hospital management will prioritize the use of funds to introduce a large number of new medical technology equipment and medical service equipment, purchase and build service supporting facilities, and Upgrade the existing equipment in the hospital. It is often easy to overlook the purchase of hardware and software equipment in hospitals and logistics management and the construction of management information systems, and it is easier to put aside the less used but important data processing functional modules in the management information system (Qiu, 2021). As a result, the stability of the hardware system is poor and the internal functions of the software are few, which cannot meet the requirements of the hospital’s huge business data processing.
4.4. Public Hospitals Lack Financial and Information Management Talents
The integration of financial management and information construction in public hospitals is an efficient combination of information system technology and financial management. Both financial personnel and information technology personnel must be familiar with financial knowledge and information network technology knowledge, and fully understand the actual work of the two aspects. And the staff can solve the problem of compatible operation of the two in actual work (Liu, 2021). However, due to the uneven computer skills of financial personnel, the financial information system work that they contact in their daily work is relatively basic and simple, and they cannot deal with and solve more complex information system problems independently. However, for professional information technology personnel, because they are not familiar with the actual needs of hospital financial management and financial work, there are certain deviations in the actual work and operation of the development and maintenance of financial information systems.
5. Recommendations for Optimization of Financial Management and Information Construction of Public Hospitals
5.1. Increase Investment in an All-Round Way to Improve the System of Information Construction
Public hospitals should strengthen their investment in the construction of information systems. Not only should they increase the investment of special funds to ensure stable investment in the capital chain during the construction of the information system, they should also invest in specialized technical and management personnel to track and collect various departments’ different needs of information construction at all times. Establish a unified coordination department, coordinate and plan the construction of hospital information system, take into account the connections between various business departments, establish effective information links for each department’s business, ensure internal information transmission and sharing, and build internal Networked information system. When it comes to highly professional issues, you can hire companies or technical personnel to assist in solving them, maintain close communication, solve demand-oriented practical problems, and ensure that information construction is gradually realized in comprehensive system planning.
5.2. Improve the Construction of the Hospital Financial Management Information System
A complete financial management information system should first improve the financial management information module, plan the modules according to the corresponding needs of the financial work, and divide the financial management into the hospital budget, cost, medical charge, medical insurance and other data modules for system data Management. At the same time, focus on the construction of the important medical charging system, accounting system and performance management system in finance, complete the effective connection between the relatively independent subsystems and finally complete the effective connection with the financial management information system. A data connection port should be established between the financial management information system and the hospital’s internal system, and a data chain should be established for the required data information to build a complete financial network system. Realize simple and convenient financial data sharing, sorting and analysis, fully grasp the dynamics of hospital funds, share financial information to help hospitals realize zero inventory management, and ensure the role of information in hospital financial decision-making and supervision.
5.3. Improve the Software and Hardware Configuration Related to Financial Management Information System
To improve the hardware and software configuration of the financial information system of public hospitals, it should first purchase high-quality computers and related hardware equipment to fill up the vacancies in demand and replace old equipment. Through cooperation with external excellent software development companies, purchase and build information software that meets their own needs. The high-quality software and hardware system has improved the operating speed and processing capacity of the information system, and also improved the efficiency of financial management. Analyzing and comparing the software and hardware of other well-managed hospitals, and appropriately introducing actual tested equipment can reduce the risk of equipment incompatibility.
5.4. Strengthen Information Technology Training for Financial Managers
Public hospitals generally maintain a relatively stable financial staff structure. Therefore, to promote the construction of financial management information technology, it is necessary to carry out information technology network training for financial staff on a regular basis, and improve the financial staff’s ability to use financial management information software in daily work. Use the financial information system to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of the data. In addition, more relevant financial management and information technology compound talents are invited to give lectures, so that financial staff can build a knowledge system structure of financial information from a general direction, and understand the various factors of the combination of financial management and information. Hospitals can also hire financial Experts in management information act as consultants to provide technical guidance to financial personnel and solve communication problems in information construction.
6. Conclusion
The implementation of information construction of hospital financial management is the upgrading and development of management. In the process of information construction, problems and deficiencies in financial management can be discovered through the supervision of data, and the situation of financial management paying too much attention to accounting and ignoring management can be changed. According to the main difficulties in the process of the actual information construction and the financial system information connection, this paper finds the key problems and proposes a systematic optimization plan. Through the construction of information platform technology, it can directly reflect the various data of the hospital in a timely manner, and help the hospital management to grasp the financial dynamics of the hospital at any time, adjust the plan in time, and improve the efficiency of decision-making.