Group decision support for IT system procurement
- PDF / 3,392,608 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 589.56 x 841.92 pts Page_size
- 82 Downloads / 239 Views
Group decision support for IT system procurement The use of multiattribute group decision support in the NHS
Nathan Proudlove, Pete Naudé and Rob Bellíngham systems. The situation in a particular organisation, for example at a particular hospital site, brings a unique combination of local factors to the decision task. The interest in major IT systems developing in
A group decision support process and a multiattribute decision making software package have been
developed at Manchester Business School. This
article describes the process and software, and their
the NHS has produced a specialised health IT
use in the facilitation of a major IT procurement decision task in the NHS. The task described is
market supplied by divisions of several of the large IT companies and some smaller companies. These companies have developed specialised systems, such as patient case-mix management systems and nursing management systems, which can be tailored
novel in that it involves both group and longitudinal decision making. The article concludes by describ¡ng some of the benefits of this approach from the point of view of the managers at the hospital concerned, and the authors' research interests.
to the specific needs of individual hospital sites.
Once a hospital has decided to procure a system to perform a particular function, the major decision task is therefore that of selecting the most appropriate system for the local situation from those offered by suppliers. Some work on similar types of studies is described in Lockett and Naudé (1991).
Background One of the results of the current wave of NHS reforms is that hospitals are becoming more autonomous, with decision making (including IT procure-
A typical NHS IT procurement consists of a number of distinct stages over which the number of alternative systems under consideration is reduced. Each
ment decision making) being delegated to local level. At the same time, national level information
management initiatives are encouraging hospitals to purchase major IT systems (comprising both hardand software) to manage patient data. The combination of these two factors results in already busy hospital managers and clinicians being called upon to make increasing numbers of complex IT procurement decisions. Decision support is therefore poten-
stage of the decision making process requires regular progress and review meetings. Between meetings information about suppliers and their systems are gathered through examination of submissions from suppliers, demonstrations by the suppliers, and visits to other sites using the systems. At the end of each stage the decision makers must
tially very valuable in increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the decision making process. As
agree that a satisfactory conclusion has been
reached in order for the next stage to commence. Since the introduction of the IT system will have effects across the organisation, the decision making group is made up of representatives from many different functions. lt is of key importance that factor
Data Loading...