Hospital computing: prognosis. Results of a joint study--ECHO, IBM, and Nolan, Norton & Company

The study was commissioned to examine the growth and sophistication of information technology in hospitals since 1976, when Nolan, Norton & Company conducted its first study of data processing in hospitals. That research project was sponsored by ECHO and IBM in 10 acute-care hospitals and focused on computers in hospital administration. It advocated wider use of on-line and database systems and called on hospital administration to educate users, to develop the information systems function, to provide management planning and controls, and to concentrate on building new systems--particularly in patient care. The objectives of the latest study were designed not only to report on the status of information technology in the hospitals, but also to forecast which new technologies hospital administration has to be prepared for as the proliferation of systems continues in the 1980s. Specifically, the study was designed to do the following: educate participants about technologies emerging in the 1980s; determine the status of information systems in hospitals; identify priority hospital functions and define how new technologies could be productively applied to these functions; evaluate the costs and benefits of automating hospital functions; and develop management strategies for implementing information systems. The conclusions of the study are limited by variations between those hospitals studied and those not studied. The study does reveal, however, the scope and level of management maturity for the information processing functions in these hospitals, management's direction in applying state-of-the-art technologies to broad areas of hospital operations, and management approaches for infusing new information technologies into the hospital of the 1980s.