A real-time case approach to teaching information systems in health services administration: hardwiring research to...

The pace of change in the health policy and health administration environments supports the need for linking teaching and research. This article describes a successful effort to tap real-time synergies between faculty research on health care information systems development and teaching in health services administration. It describes the real-time case approach (RTCA), a highly interactive case method employed in teaching a graduate health management information systems course. The approach offers another alternative to the "teach-the-text-and-lecture" model and adds important dimensions to the standard "case discussion" model. The article discusses the mechanics of implementing the RTCA, the instructor's role, and five cases used in the course. Among the benefits of the RTCA is that students place great reliance upon cases in interpreting other reading material, lectures, and discussion points in the course. Students are more likely to make theory connections to elements in one or more of the cases. Potential weaknesses include students' inhibitions to criticize and question key decision makers who they have met, as opposed to those who might appear in a fictional case. Also, some possible concession of comprehensiveness and time-ordered treatment of information systems issues, as might be found in a written case study, is made in favor of the dynamics of information gathering, distillation, and integration by students in the real-time case environment.