Executive Summary
Peachtree Healthcare(PH) has a mission to ensure quality and consistency of care across all of its hospitals at the highest efficiency. As PH’s growth occurred through acquisitions its IT infrastructure is composed of fractured legacy systems that do not speak to one another and break down. It is therefore necessary to upgrade PH’s IT infrastructure in order to better serve its clients and aid its physicians and other staff in doing their work.
The company has the option of installed either a monolithic and standardized system or an SOA system. After evaluating the pros and cons of each type of system it is recommended that PH use an SOA system as it is lower cost, flexible and will be easier to obtain employee buy in for.
Current Situation
At the current moment PH’s IT is not reliable. This occurred as a result of PH’s growth through acquisition which caused them to inherit multiple legacy systems which are incompatible with one another. As a result of this the majority of the energy and budget in the IS department goes towards keeping the IS infrastructure “treading water”. Not long ago Wallis Memorial Hospital had a large scale IT failure which interrupted a lot of work at the hospital as the staff there rely on IT as a primary tool for their work.
This current IT infrastructure does not serve Peachtree’s goal of having a degree of standardization across all of their hospitals. It also does not support to physicians to be able to do their best work, or like in the Wallis Memorial Hospital incident, will at times disadvantage them due to not running.
Criteria
Peachtree should evaluate the implementation of its systems with the following criteria;
Value for Money
Value for money is important when purchasing or implementing anything in a business. It is important to focus on the long-term value that the business will gain from the money that is currently being spent on upgrades. If a system will need to be quickly replaced or not provide a large amount of future value it may not be the best investment for the company in the long-term.
Flexibility
Flexibility is if the system is easy to modify, customize or upgrade one it is installed. This will allow more value to be found in the system over time through modifications or customizations. Physicians may find a certain module is useful, but would like to change the usage of it slightly. If the system is flexible it will be easier, and often less costly, to accommodate this request.
Time to value
Time to value is a measurement for when the new system will realise its value for the business. This is important as it focuses on how long it will take until it becomes advantageous for the new system to be used and focuses on the value it can create for the business.
Staff buy-in
It is very important to get the staff buy-in when installing a new system as without in the new system will never be used to its full value. Without staff buy-in an installation may even fail as the uptake, learning and usage of the system may not become high enough.
Alternatives And Recommendation
SOA
An SAO architecture would individually review the business functions and decide on an ideal option or standard for each. Each individual function would then be made into a project and piloted. This would allow greater flexibility with-in the system while still providing the standardization across all of the hospitals. An SOA may also increase staff buy in as the staff using each module would have input on how the module is built. This customization to the user’s needs would make it easier for the staff to learn to use and make use of the new system.
As each function is viewed as its own project the time to value is less than other options, as each module is a small improvement. This will be even more valid if the improvements are first done on items that are no longer functioning for the hospitals in the current IT system. It is debatable as to the value for money that an SOA will provide, this is hard to determine unless there are budgets or specific projects on the table. In general SOA will be a cost that will be higher over the long run as the upgrades will be on-going, however the value obtained from each individual upgrade may be higher as it is built to the user’s specifications.
Standardization/Monolithic System
Standardization, or a Monolithic System, would pick a single set of applications and have all of the hospitals use them. This would allow all of the physicians to work together through the system. It would also reduce the cost of repairs and IT in the long run, although it has a large upfront cost and may take a long time to have set up and train all of the staff on.
This method would force the system upon all of the staff, which may decrease or limit staff buy in as they have less direct influence or say over the programs and IT infrastructure that they work this. A monolithic system’s flexibility would depend upon the software package that is chosen. It may have a fairly low flexibility in terms of modifications and customizations. Upgrades can, at times, be forced by the provider of the software or may be expensive to obtain. Although there may be savings in the long run the upfront cost of a monolithic system is significant and if it needs to be replaced in a short period of time, breaks or does not work for the company there would be a large amount of money wasted. The time to value is hard to determine without further information on the exact software package that would be picked. A monolithic system would force standardization across the hospitals. This may further decrease buy in as many of the physicians are not salaried and therefore work on their own and it is hard to standardize many more complex procedure or situations.]
Recommendation
I recommend that PH install a SOA system as it better aligns with our goals, budgets and will be easier to have both our salaried and non-salaried staff work on together.
Risk Management Plan
There are many risks involved in changing system. With the installation of a new system there is risks to do with a system not working at first, lack of uptake from the employees or disruption of work. A SOA system relies on a pilot system, which will mitigate the risk of the system not working as it will be tested by the users. This will also mitigate the risk of a lack of buy in from employees as the employees will have been involved in the building of each module. This increased buy in and that the modules are made with employee feedback increased the value to Peachtree employees and patients.