ABSTRACT
Healthcare organizations are facing pressures from many directions, including consolidation, integration, and a driving need to do more in less time using rapidly evolving technologies. The organization’s successful response to these pressures often springs from its ability to efficiently and effectively capture, use, share, and manipulate both data and information. And, as a result, information system initiatives and project demands are heavier than they ever have been, driven by the healthcare industry’s growing trend toward mergers, acquisitions, and affiliations, managed care and case management, and the resultant need to integrate and manage disparate information systems. To compound these challenges, qualified information technology resources are scarce and the costs for both, the systems and skilled IT resources, are skyrocketing.
