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

Reply via email to