Improving the success of IS/IT projects in healthcare: Benefits and project management approaches

Abstract

Rapid changes in the business environment are increasing the pressure on organisations to ensure the delivery of successful projects to fulfil their strategic goals. The use of emerging information systems and technology (IS/IT) has rapidly grown in several contexts, including healthcare. There have been two major drivers for the investments in Health IS/IT: the ever-increasing burden from chronic disease with costs growing significantly faster, and; the recognition of the need for greatly improved quality and safety in the delivery of healthcare. Both of these key drivers have led to very heavy investments in IS/IT in order to enable timely information-sharing for clinical decisions. The authors argue that by combining the Project Management (PM) approach with the Benefits Management (BM) approach, one can improve the current low success rate of implementations and enhance the reliability of the delivery of benefits from investments in IS/IT.