GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN:
How Hospital Directors Choose Financial Information Systems for THEIR Needs
Published: July 10, 2006
Summary
Business directors at hospitals (such as the CFO or VP Finance) are at the center of setting priorities and directions as they manage budgets in complex organizations with limited resources and diverse needs. Patient care always comes before business needs in the hospital environment, but at what point do business directors need to increase the priority of business needs in order to better meet patient needs?
For example, many financial system packages are simply “add-ons” to large hospital systems that include everything from Clinical Information Systems (CIS) to Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems and everything in between. Often that means the CFO has to “get by” with a less-than-optimal “financial solution”. In our other research, we had heard anecdotally that some hospital administrators were not completely satisfied with their financial systems, even though it is one of their key tools for managing the hospital organization as a whole.
Included in this document
| • | Lessons about the selection and implementation process |
| • | Surprising observations about the typical product options |
| • | Reasons for selecting an out-of-the box system – Microsoft Dynamics GP |
