Online complaint management system: a smart hospital challenge after the COVID-19 pandemic

The objective of this article is to design and develop an online complaint management system for clients, as well as to share the process of establishing the Complaint and Reconciliation Management Service Center (CRC), which could be used as a model within a new hospital. The CRC’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) were created at the same time as the CRC was established. The complaints were graded according to their severity. The IT support team then developed a web application in which appellants can select the type of comment or complaint, their identification data, the date and time of the event, their comments, and their requirements in the complaint form for service and medical treatment. When a complaint issue is submitted to the CRC website, the CRC LINE Messenger group and the CRC e-mail are both notified. Using the IT system, all work steps involved can be tracked and completion logged. All appellants will be able to track their complaints immediately following the sending of complete complaint data. This complaint management process makes use of IT systems, online channels, and a hybrid conference. This project can be led by multidisciplinary teams comprised of not only physicians, but also medical personnel, an IT team, back offices, and members of the community. This complaint management system is one of the hospital segments that has contributed to the MFU-MCH passing an accreditation from the Healthcare Accreditation Institute (Public Organization) according to the Hospital and Healthcare Standards (5^th Edition). We hope that other units, in particular hospitals in Thailand and other parts of the world, will be motivated to form similar collaborations in order to move their organizations toward a sustainable novel and smart hospital by this CRC model.