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December 2, 2009

The enterprise IT return on investment myth (and you think Enterprise 2.0 has issues?)

The problem "is mainly that computer systems are built for the accountants and managers and not built to help doctors, nurses and patients," the report's lead author, Dr. David Himmelstein, said in an interview with Computerworld.

Himmelstein, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, said that in its current state, hospital computing might modestly improve the quality of health care processes, but it does not reduce overall administrative costs. "First, you spend $25 million dollars on the system itself and hire anywhere from a couple-dozen to a thousand people to run the system," he said. "And for doctors, generally, it increases time they spend [inputting data]."

Himmelstein said that only a handful of hospitals and clinics realized even modest savings and increased efficiency -- and those hospitals custom-built their systems after computer system architects conducted months of research.

via computerworld.com

This is a quote from an interview by Computerworld with one of the authors of a research paper published in the American Journal of Medicine on the impact of IT on the delivery of health care in the United States.

Their conclusion, based on the data: not much.

However, I think there are some hints here about the root cause of the problem:

  • Don't expect benefits from systems built as a means to an end;
  • Build systems to fit the people, not the other way around; and
  • Real ROI data takes time and effort to gather.

This is also all very interesting when you consider my recent posts about measuring the value of Enterprise 2.0 versus the clear and obvious bottom line benefits of three-letter acronym systems... because it sounds like these health information systems were sold on the same sort of 'hard' ROI numbers.

Hat tip to Nicholas Carr.

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Filed under  //   enterprise 2.0   healthcare   information technology management   measurement  

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November 22, 2009

Measuring Enterprise 2.0

You might think from recent posts that I don’t believe in measurement, particularly when it comes to measuring enterprise social computing projects. In fact, I do believe in measurement but also believe that measurement should be treated in a (organisationally-speaking) political context.

 

I’ve also noticed a quantum-like quality to cause-and-effect in organisational measurement - the helicopter view reported to the board often appears to bare little resemblance to the experience of staff on the ground. I don’t actually think there is anything quantum about the enterprise - its just that ‘organisations’ are complex systems. This simply makes it difficult to measure in absolute hard numbers anything that impacts on that system, unless you are prepared to invest in longitudinal and solidly scientific research methods.

 

The worst examples of this are systems that promise employee self-service but simply shift the transaction burden from a cost centre (where it is measurable) to the individual (where it is not measurable).

 

For example, if you are trying to justify the value of an intranet then time saved should be a great metric. However, it depends on how you value employee time and the actual impact on the organisation of time wasted searching for information. In many cases, this waste is invisible - people just end up working harder to make up for deficient systems. 


So, if measurement is important what should we measure?

 

Wrong question. More on this another time.

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Filed under  //   enterprise 2.0   enterprise social computing   information management   information technology management   intranets   measurement  

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