Applying TQM/CQI principles to information system selection

Faced with the challenge of selecting a new information system, senior management at North Valley Hospital in Whitefish, Montana, decided to employ principles of total quality management and continuous quality improvement to help ensure an efficient process that involved and empowered those who would use the new system. Senior managers set a vision for the process, then assigned responsibility for system selection to a task force representing departments and disciplines that would be most affected by the system. The task force established a systematic process for identifying information system needs, evaluating existing products, and selecting among those products.