Responsibility Modelling: A New Approach to the Re-Alignment and Re-Engineering of Health-Care Organisations

Abstract

Health care providers today perceive the adoption and utilization of information technology as vital to their success in the market place. The adoption and utilisation of information technology will change an organisation and will force it to re-align and re-engineer its processes. Within health-care organisations the process of adopting information technology, and re-engineering the organisation, is one that must not fail, as to fail in such a process is to expose people to the risk of death, or at least loss of personal information. It is vital then that when re-engineering in the medical sector we ensure that confidentiality, security and safety polices are not compromised. Recent medical information system failures have shown us that the process of adoption and utilization is far from easy. This has sparked a research debate into why systems development and re-engineering activities are failing. It is therefore vital that we develop techniques that allow us a) to explore and define how an information system is going to change the organisation's structure and behaviour b) to manage the process of re-aligning the organisation's structure with its processes, and c) to demonstrate that the re-aligned and re-engineered structures are still in line with safety and security policies.