“Too Far Ahead of the IT Curve”
CIS 521
Professor:
Due Date: October 23rd 2011
“Too Far Ahead of the IT Curve”
Peachtree Healthcare has major information technology (IT) infrastructure problems, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Max Berndt is struggling to find the right fix. Max can go with a single set of systems and applications that will provide consistency across Peachtree's facilities but may not give doctors enough flexibility. Max also has the option to choose service-oriented architecture (SOA). Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components (discrete pieces of code and/or data structures) that can be reused for different purposes. SOA design principles are used during the phases of systems development and integration. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) will allow Peachtree to standardize incrementally and selectively but poses certain risks as a newer technology. What should he do? Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0707A and R0707Z, authored by John P Glaser, Chief Information Officer (CIO) for Partners HealthCare System. George C Halvorson, the Chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, warns against using untested methodologies such as SOA in a health care environment, where lives are at stake. He says Peachtree's management must clarify its overall IT vision before devising a plan to achieve each of its objectives. Monte Ford, the Chief Information Officer at American Airlines, says Peachtree can gradually replace its old systems with SOA. An incremental approach, he points out, would not only minimize risk but also enhance flexibility and control, and would allow IT to shift priorities along the way. Some of the key challenges and issues are pressure to standardize