Leverage Collaborative Knowledge

The challenge faced by many healthcare organizations today is the delivery of high-quality, cost-effective care to patients in response to the driving forces of national standards, managed care and changing consumer perceptions. In order to meet the challenge, these organizations must recognize that information is a valuable asset and collaborative knowledge is the key to clinical decision making, total quality management and cost effectiveness.

Shaping an IT Strategy

Without a doubt, information technology (IT) drives collaborative knowledge. Hospitals and care-delivery enterprises are grappling with overwhelming messages about the pending explosion of IT. Initiatives such as technology advancements, emergence of standards, increased national policy attention and patient safety are driving momentum behind information technology’s role in transforming the healthcare system. Executives must now take a strategic view of IT to lay the foundation for achieving the “digital organization” vision.

In the face of declining profit, the need to grow the business as a mean to achieve sustainable competitive advantage has never been stronger. Determine an IT strategy must be coupled with an understanding of the potential business value of various technologies.

As part of the strategic planning process, Eprosystem takes a role in building understanding of these technologies among the executives by addressing the following:

• Determining the technologies that support the organization priorities.
• Defining and consolidating functionality.
• Describing how systems integrate with the current environment.
• Outlining dependencies among technologies.
• Showing how they impact operations.
• Understanding the cultural implications.
• Establishing the capital requirements.

Understanding these strategic relationships enables the organizations to better identify those technologies that hold the most potential for supporting their strategic goals. Executives can have the information needed to further evaluate competing IT investment options.