Analyzing an ES Implementation in a Health Care Environment

Abstract

At the present moment, many hospitals are going through a process of change directed at the integrated delivery of health care. Enterprise Systems (ES) are increasingly used to support this process and to manage hospitals on a coherent basis. We also know, however, that ES implementation itself, can be viewed as an organizational change process that affects many stakeholders. For that reason it is relevant to study how ES implementation takes place within hospitals and how it tends to impact the existing organizational arrangements. The purpose of this chapter is therefore to describe and analyze how ES implementation within a hospital affects the interests of stakeholders and which specific problems may arise as a result. This chapter uses the evidence of a case study to reveal some important dimensions of the organizational change issues related to ES implementation within hospitals.