At 9:18 am +1000 20/6/07, Andrew McIntyre wrote:
Ian Cheong wrote:
I believe good design does not prevent IT project failure, in fact
capture of the agenda by technical experts overriding business
objectives (eg returm on investment) is more likely to result in failure.
Now I know I am frozen in time - it seemed like only yesterday, but it
was nearly 3 years ago.....
For those interested in Standish Group methodology in their long-term
study of IT projects...which has been questioned for scientific validity.
My experience with Australian Health IT is the opposite, it's the
singular focus on the Business case and a complete lack of understanding
of the technology that is the problem. The management of Health IT
should be done by people with years of experience in Health IT and not
the bureaucracy, ditto for Public Hospital management.
Hospitals worked when run by doctors and nurses and a few managers to
pay the wages and organise someone to mow the lawn. IT works when IT
people are involved. At some point in time people will look back at this
era of managerialism and wonder why, as a society, we were so stupid.
IT people who work in the area understand the Business case deeply
without having useless meetings and they understand the IT and can put
it together. Its taken NEHTA 3 years to learn enough to get back to the
point we were 3 years ago... and in the process have set the process
back 5 years.
Andrew McIntyre
Mostly way too true except what you describe as "opposite" experience
is actually the "business people" - healthcare professionals - in
control, which is how it should be. The IT people work for the
managers and not the other way around.
This problem is widespread across all sectors. Just a couple of weeks
ago I was discussing a school IT policy with the head of school - the
cost of the student laptopp program seems ridiculous at $1500 per
year, and teachers are often complaining about how their teaching is
stuffed up by the technology not doing what they want or not working
or not being available on time.
Add to "...singular focus on the Business case and a complete lack of
understanding
of the technology..." "*and management*".
The "business case" buzzword has been picked up by the bureaucracy
with no connection or understanding of to how to *manage* a
"(healthcare) business" to generate a return on investment in the
requisite short timeframe (certainly less than three years and
ideally probably closer to 18 months where modern technology is
involved).
Really, the only people who can make a valid business case are the
people managing the relevant healthcare businesses, who just happen
to have a deep understanding of the issues involved.
Worse, much of the value in healthcare information is created in
"market transactions" - when information is exchanged - exchanged
information has more value than information in hand. Therefore to
generate value, there has to be a market, which cannot exist when the
walls around organisations prevent market exchanges of information.
Ian.
--
Dr Ian R Cheong, BMedSc, FRACGP, GradDipCompSc, MBA(Exec)
Health Informatics Consultant, Brisbane, Australia
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(for urgent matters, please send a copy to my practice email as well:
[EMAIL PROTECTED])
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