Re: Why do Health-IT projects fail?

[Thomas Beale]

One major reason many health (and other) IT projects fail is because the 
level of decision-making (about funding and large-scale planning) is 
almost inevitably many levels of hierarchy above where the kind of 
technically/clinically competent people who could asses/design/plan such 
endeavours exist. Thus we have the situation where those who are 
competent to build anything (whether it be a single system or a national 
EHR strategy) are handed usually mad "architectures" and 
"specifications" invented by those without only the dimmest grasp of the 
domain, let alone the problem at hand. Now, let's all go and read "The 
Peter Principle" again;-)

- thomas beale