Resource management activities in healthcare information systems: A process perspective

Healthcare industries have not only been criticized for being slow in adopting IT (Barnes 2001) but also face tremendous challenges in developing and deploying HIS successfully (Teoh and Cai 2009). In view of these challenges, this study aims to articulate the theory and practice from Enterprise Systems (ES) as it is perceived to produce an extensive suite of strategic, managerial, and operational benefits in the healthcare setting. Healthcare institutions have begun to explore the possibilities of exploiting ES as a means to facilitate the delivery of high-quality and integrated patient care. In particular, one of the benefits of ES is that it leads to better resource management in terms of assets and manpower allocation. In our study, empirical data was collected and analyzed based on an in-depth case study of two ES implementations at Alexandra Hospital in Singapore. Our findings contribute to the ES research on how an organization manages its resource portfolio and activity during the implementation of a healthcare information system in a hospital. Theoretically, we adapted and extended Sirmon et al.’s (2007) Dynamic Resource Management Model of Value Creation and integrated it with the Technochange Life Cycle framework proposed by Markus (2004). Finally, this paper adds value by inductively deriving eight key resource management activities and seven key resources that correspond to the phases of the technochange life cycle.