Over At The Health Care Blog, Aneesh Chopra Distorts IT Failure Reality

This article outlines the problems of enthusiasm and the problems of control, as well as the overwhelming complexity, that make the failure of large developments almost inevitable. Rather than the positive view found in much of the public administration literature, the author suggests a pessimism when it comes to information systems development. Aims for information technology should be modest ones, and in many cases, the risks, uncertainties, and probability of failure mean that new investments in technology are not justified. The author argues for a public official as a recalcitrant, suspicious, and skeptical adopter of IT. Article start: The majority of information systems (IS) developments are unsuccessfu1. The larger the development, the more likely it will be unsuccessful.Though the exact numbers are uncertain and depend to some extent on how success is measured, something like 20 percent to 30 percent of all developments are total failures in which projects are abandoned. Around 30 percent to 60 percent are partial failures in which there are time and cost overruns or other problems. The minority are those counted as successes (Collins and Bicknell 1997; Corner and Hinton 2002; Georgiadou 2003; Heeks and Bhatnagar 1999; Heeks 2002, 2004 ; Iacovou 1999; James 1997; Korac-Boisvert and Kouzmin 1995 ; Standish Group 2001, 2004).A U.S. survey of IS projects conducted by the Standish Group in 2001 found that success rates varied from 59 percent in the retail sector to 32 per...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: IT failure Healthcare IT failure denialist Obamacare Health Care Blog Aneesh Chopra Source Type: blogs