Establishment of Reference Center and Policy Advocacy in Department of Medical Services: Information Needs - การพัฒนากรมการแพทย์เป็นศูนย์อ้างอิงด้านวิชาการและข้อเสนอแนะเชิงนโยบาย: สารสนเทศที่ต้องการ

บทคัดย่อ

Department of Medical Services (DMS) recognizes the importance of having information systems
at all levels, both for everyday operation and for management and strategic planning, Good
information leads to good policy advocacy and making recommendations based on scientific evidence
(Evidence-based policy formation). This is set in DMS’s strategy of being Centers of Excellence
of which being Reference Center is one of its elements that in turn leads to good policy
advocacy.
The study was divided into three parts. This literature review, descriptive study was the first
part aims to study the information needs to become Reference Center and advocate policy. The
results from this study would be used for further study of how to develop information system to
accomplish the goals.
By reviewing literatures and related documents to analyze the information needed, six categories
of data and information are required for DMS to become Reference Center and advocate policy
includes: epidemiology, burden of diseases, economic burden of diseases, healthcare resources (medical
equipments, man power), technology assessment and quality of services. With further review of
available information in these categories in Thailand, we found that the information are scattered
and incomplete, especially information in economic burden of diseases, quality of care and technology
assessment are the most missing (the latter is also specified in DMS mandate) so DMS has to
focus more on the matter.
Key words: information systems, policy, database, advocacy