Today’s Health Care Environment

Abstract

Implementing major informatics systems in any organization—even in a so-called “computer” company—is a challenge. When we look at organizations with widely varying missions, there are still many common aspects. They are all staffed with people possessing the normal set of human frailties. There is often a basic set of administrative-type functions that have to be performed. At the same time, the specific missions of two seemingly similar health care organizations, e.g., two hospitals, might require significant differences in many of their information systems. The needs of a large urban trauma center might be quite different from those of a rural feeder hospital.