The report is written for Mr Andoni, CEO of the board of the Antonius Medical Centre. The purpose of the report is to discuss the role the Head of the IS Department should play in the organisation. Mr Frank Verhage has announced his retirement from Antonius Medical Centre. So Mr Andoni is particularly interested in how such a person would relate to the divisions of Antonius Medical Centre.
Antonius Medical Centre, IS Department.
1. Introduction
‘The success of every company depends ultimately on the calibre of its directors and the effectiveness of its board.’ (Bob, 2009). In the rapidly changing global marketplace, where companies have the freedom to choose how and where business gets done, the directors are under increasing pressure to help achieve profitable growth. Successful chief information officers earn their access to the executive suite by helping their companies compete. That means the CIO role must align IT with overall business goals, and obtain the best from their people, processes and information.
The Antonius Medical Centre is a hospital, where the role of Head of Information Services (IS) is crucial. The hospital faces many problems in the IS department, where the situation is no longer acceptable. Even though the hospital has a hospital-wide information system, it is distrusted by medical people. There are many shadow systems which are not integrated with hospital-wide system. The Antonius Medical Centre also has operational and staff problems. It provides poor information and there is a lack of documentation, lack of quality and inconsistent data. So, the board of directors decided to hire a new head for the IS department at the Antonius Medical Centre. In this report problems at the Antonius Medical Centre and the role of Head of IS will be discussed and also recommendations will be made for the IS department in the Antonius Medical Centre.
2. Objective
This report addresses the following issues:
3. Summary of the IT/IS issues at the Antonius Medical Centre
The Antonius Medical Centre has problems in the IS and computing department. The Centre uses a hospital-wide information system, which is used to maintain patients’ and doctor’s records, financial information, transaction records and management information. The local information systems are personal initiatives of doctors to support clinical work. However, these shadow systems lack the capabilities to provide management information and hold inconsistent data about patients.
The most important IS problem in the hospital are three types of issues which are IS-related issues, Information Technology (IT)-related issues and Information Management (IM)-related issues. These issues must be addressed in order to deal with existing difficulties.
The issues related to IS are:
The issues related to IT are:
The issues related to IM are:
The management, IT staff and medical staff are facing many issues with the IS department at the Antonius Medical Centre. Therefore the Centre should appoint a Head of IS or IT Director, because the IT Director plays a major role in the organisation.
4. The role of the Head of IS (IT Director)
The IT Director is a critical instrument of IT governance and plays a key role in the development of an organisation. The basic responsibility of the IT Director is to be an effective leader of the IT resources on which the business depends. The IT Director should clearly set the goals, objectives and make useful decisions that help the organisation. The IT Director should enable the IT department to provide strategic information to the management.
The main role of IT Director is to plan, manage and oversee the activities and operations of the IT department. Apart from these roles, the IT Director’s activities involve the governance the IT functions, operating the core infrastructure and related services, managing the firm’s process, recruiting and managing IT skills, expertise and staff, developing and retaining IT project management skills, managing the suppliers of IT services and products, and measuring and managing the company’s IT investment.
The IT Director:
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it” (Eisenhower, 2009). In fact the role of the IT Director is vital for the IT department in an organisation. Similarly, leadership quality is important for an IT director. There are four emerging leadership qualities for the role of IT Director’s activities. They are:
5. The relationship between the IT Director and the divisions
The relationship between the IT Director and the divisions is the most important part in the organisation as this relationship could be useful in developing a user-friendly IS for the organisation which is more customer focused.
In the Antonius Medical Centre the relationship between the IT department and the medical staff is not good because the IT staff are not providing adequate IS support to doctors and other medical personnel and information is unreliable. Some doctors have started using their own system for medical purposes, but the hospital has incompatible software packages. Consequently, doctors become frustrated.
The relationship between the IT department and the hospital board is also not good because the hospital board expect the IT department to develop the hospital-wide system and the local systems within the limitation of the hospital’s technical infrastructure and the limited budget. Even some of the IS/IT staff say most of them are ‘freakware’ due the old system, lack of quality, lack of documentation and inconsistent data.
Simultaneously the board of directors are feeling unhappy about the current hospital-wide system because the management are not able to retrieve the required information. Another main problem with the hospital board is that they are not IS literate and don’t have any IS/IT members who can understand/discuss the IS/IT department problems.
6. IS/IT issues the Antonius Medical Centre will need to address in the future
The IS/IT issues in the Antonius Medical Centre is not a permanent problem and can be solved by taking proper measures in the future. The main IS/IT issues the Antonius Medical Centre needs to address in the future are:
The other IS/IT issues the Antonius Medical Centre needs to address in the future are:
7. The capabilities required within the IS department to manage the future issues
Although the Antonius Medical Centre has a lot of future issues to be addressed, the IS/IT department should have the capability to handle it. The necessary capabilities required for the IS/IT department to manage these issues are:
These are the necessary capabilities required to enable the IS/IT department to manage the Antonius Medical Centre in the future. Although the IS/IT department has the capabilities, the Head of IS (IT Director) requires key skills in order to deal with them.
8. Skill set required for a candidate for the post of Head of IS (IT Director)
The IS/IT department may have the capability to manage the future issues of the Antonius Medical Centre, but the IT Director will ensure whether this will be successful or not. So the skills of the IT Director play an important role in the Centre.
The IT Director’s skills include:
These are the core skills for the IT Director to deal with the core IS capability areas. Other skills required are:
9. Recommendations
After long and thoughtful considerations of all the issues and peculiarities at the Antonius Medical Centre, it is recommended that an IT Director is appointed immediately. He or she should take the responsibility for developing and implementing a new IS strategy that meets the needs of managers, doctors, nurses and other stakeholders. The IT Director should create a new IT infrastructure plan which replaces all the old equipment. The IS/IT department has to change/restructure to become more customer focused. The board of directors should work closely with the IT Director and discuss the IS/IT-related issues.
10. Conclusion
In conclusion, it is recommended that the Antonius Medical Centre appoint a new IT Director to the IS/IT department to improve the current situation in the organisation.
11. Bibliography
Antonius Medical Centre. Case Study.
Boddy, D. Boonstra, A. and Kennedy G. (2005). Managing Information systems: An Organisational Perspective, Harlow: Financial Times/Prentice Hall. 2nd Edition
Bob, T. (2009) Appointment, qualification and purpose of directorships
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Feeny, D. and Willcocks, L. (1997). The IT Function: Changing Capabilities and Skills, Managing IT as a Strategic Resource. UK: McGraw-Hill (Material distributed in the class).
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