Managing information technology in academic medical centers: a "multicultural" experience

Based on a session at the 1997 conference on Information Resources and Academic Medicine sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges, this article illustrates how the beliefs and concerns of academic medicine's diverse professional cultures affect the management of information technology. Two scenarios--one dealing with the standardization of desktop PCs, the other with publication of syllabi on an institutional intranet--form the basis of this exercise. Four prototypical members of a hypothetical medical center community--the chairman of surgery, a senior basic scientist, the chief information officer of an affiliated hospital, and the chief administrative officer--offer their perspectives on each scenario. Their statements illustrate many of the challenges of planning, deploying, and maintaining effective information technology in the "multicultural" environment of academic medical centers.