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Organizational Implementation in Crisis: 104 Issues in EPR Implementation

Anne Forsell, Helena Karsten, Riikka Vuokko, Organizational Implementation in Crisis: 104 Issues in EPR Implementation. TUCS Technical Reports 964, Turku Centre for Computer Science, 2010.

Abstract:

Organizational implementation of an information system can fail for a number of reasons. We describe here the 104 different reasons the users gave for the failure of implementing an electronic patient record system in a surgical clinic. We classify these reasons with the issue order model introduced by Star and Ruhleder. The model follows Bateson’s levels of learning and portrays the problems the users meet on three levels: the first one for simple and technical issues, the second one for more complex and possibly combined issues, and the third one for political or ideological issues. We were able to identify 48 first order issues, 36 second order issues (of which four were due to mutual influence of several first level issues), and 20 third order issues. This classification is not the only way to see the issues, as something that appears as a first order issue to a middle manager might be seen as an insurmountable third order issue for a worker. Moreover, all the issues are interrelated, and solving one issue might have substantial influences on the others. Also, the issues seemed to accumulate and concentrate on points.

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BibTeX entry:

@TECHREPORT{tFoKaVu10a,
  title = {Organizational Implementation in Crisis: 104 Issues in EPR Implementation},
  author = {Forsell, Anne and Karsten, Helena and Vuokko, Riikka},
  number = {964},
  series = {TUCS Technical Reports},
  publisher = {Turku Centre for Computer Science},
  year = {2010},
  keywords = {electronic patient record,  social structures, organizational implementation of IT, user resistance, problems, failure},
  ISBN = {978-952-12-2396-9},
}

Belongs to TUCS Research Unit(s): Zeta Emerging Technologies

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