On Sat, 2003-06-07 at 21:22, David Forslund wrote: > > Where I agree, is what I keep hearing from hospitals that have purchased > a large system (usually for billing). They tell me that despite the > fact that they've paid the vendor some $10+M, the vendor owns them > rather than the other way around. They believe they can only do what > the vendor tells them they can do. They've totally lost control of their > resources. This is a big and recurring problem as far as I can see. > Does this sound familiar to anyone else?
Absolutely, and the biggest reason I left the hospital IT environment.......actually the attitude cascades. The vendor treats the IT dept that way and then the IT dept treats the users that way. I always felt that my users were my customers and I therefore was in constant conflict with my boss(es) who were constantly under the control of the vendors. :-( When I tried to stick up for my "customers" and their needs......well, it wasn't pretty <g>. > This is where open source can help. But it only helps. I find that there > isn't enough expertise in the hospital for them to understand what they > really need. > They are dependent on the vendor for that knowledge. This is where the > danger lies. > The same situation could happen with an open source installation. I don't > have > a good solution for this problem. The field is changing and an agressive leader could make great advances for his/her organization. It is difficult to near impossible to get a VP or CTO / CIO to step out on that limb even when shown the facts and ROI. I must point out an exception to this is Mike McCoy of UCLA Medical Center. But he is still the only one I know of....... Regards, Tim
