A Survey on the Application of Enterprise Architecture in Healthcare Systems: Challenges, Positive Impacts, and Success Factors

Background

Enterprise Architecture is a management and technology practice that is devoted to improving enterprises' performance. It enables them to see themselves in terms of a holistic and integrated view of their strategic direction, business practices, information flows, and technology resources (Bernard, 2012). EA includes details about an organization's processes, capabilities, data, application systems, and IT infrastructure using various standardized representation techniques (Kaisler et al., 2005; Lankhorst, 2013). An enterprise-wide architecture should serve as an authoritative reference, source of standards for processes/resources, and provider of designs for future operating states. Moreover, the best practices are very resource-intensive, and the scope is not all-inclusive because of the costs of implementation and maintenance methods. The organization faces the challenge of deciding which to adopt, how to do it, and what overlaps, contradictions, and gaps from the resulting collection (Bernard, 2012).

Processes based on ontological structures are predictable and produce repetitive results; on the other hand, those not based rely exclusively on their practitioners (Zachman, 2016). EA's analysis is not limited to IT systems, but also covers the relationship and support of business entities. Thus, EA research focuses on the "strategic" implications of EA's efforts in the Mission, Vision, Strategy, Objectives, Actions, and Operations of the analyzed business systems (Aier, 2014; Boh & Yellin, 2007; Ross et al., 2006).