TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT IN THE INFORMATION AGE

Technology Management in the Information Age

Executive Summary

Organisations are in the midst of transformation. In many industries, mass production by large, vertically integrated, hierarchically organized firms is giving way to more flexible forms of both internal organization and industrial structure. Work is increasingly accomplished through networks of smaller, more focused groups. The resulting structure of sub-organisations is redefining the boundaries of both firms and industries. In sum, modern enterprise is undergoing major restructuring and information technology IT is an important driver of this transformation. "A fundamental change is taking place in the nature and application of technology in business. This change has profound and far-reaching implications for organisations and for you...the information age is evolving into a second era. Organisations that do not make this transition will fail. They will become irrelevant or cease to exit."

Technology Management in the Information Age

Introduction

The benefits derived from a Health Information Systems (HIS) require rigorous evaluation. It is claimed that organizational and social issues are the main components of such a system [1]. The more technology, human and organization fit with each other, the greater the potential of HIS. Most existing evaluation studies of HIS focus on technical issues or clinical processes, which do not explain why HIS works well or poorly with a specific user in a specific setting [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] and [7].

The central purpose of this paper is to show how we derived a framework for HIS evaluation that incorporates comprehensive dimensions and measures of HIS and provides a technological, human and organizational fit. A case study demonstrates the application of the proposed framework for describing the critical adoption factors of a particular HIS with a particular user in a particular setting. This proposed framework, human, organization and technology-fit (HOT-fit) is constructed so that it is capable of being useful in conducting a thorough evaluation study. It is also possible that it will assist researchers and practitioners to unfold and understand the perceived complexity of HIS evaluation. The new framework builds on previous work on the review of HIS evaluation [8] and [9]. It also makes use of two models of IS evaluation, namely the IS Success Model and and the IT-Organization Fit Model .

This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the theoretical background of the proposed framework. The aforementioned models are presented to explore their applicability in improving on those used in Health Informatics. This then forms the basis for our first proposed evaluation framework for HIS presented in Section 3. Section 4 discusses an existing Fundus Imaging System in a primary care organization that is used as a research case study. Section 5 presents the research methodology for applying our framework to this case study. The case study findings are presented in Section 6. Finally, discussion and conclusions are given in the last section.

Theoretical Background

The proposed human, organization and technology-fit evaluation framework was developed after a critical investigation of the existing findings of HIS and IS evaluation studies (discussed in the preceding ...