Application of fuzzy simulation for evaluating enterprise application integration in healthcare organisations

Healthcare organisations have focused on the latest technological innovations to overcome their organisational and clinical problems. The information systems were not developed in a cordinated way but evolved as autonomous and hetrogeneous systems. Thus, the integration of these systems represents one of the most urgent priorities of healthcare organisations that allow the whole organisation to meet the increasing clinical, organisational and managerial needs. Recently, technological developments have emerged in the area of integration technology such as Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). This provides significant benefits to organisations to overcome the integration problem. This work therefore evaluates the adoption of EAI in healthcare organisations. In doing so, Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) simulation is used to demonstrate the causal inter-relationships between the EAI adoption factors. FCM simulation provides insights into better understanding about interdependencies of the factors that influence EAI adoption in healthcare organisations

UNDERSTANDING THE RATIONALE BEHIND TACTICAL SYSTEMS INTEGRATION PROJECT INITIATIONS AND PATTERNS IN THEIR IMPLEMENTATION APPROACHES

Although the importance of adopting a strategic approach for integration of various internal and external systems in an enterprise has been well advocated, several organizations have been adopting tactical approaches that focus on short-term solutions to integrate relatively a small set of systems. This paper presents the details of an exploratory study aimed at investigating the drivers of such tactical systems integration approaches; expected benefits as perceived by senior IT executives involved in those integration projects; and commonly employed implementation approaches. Data, collected from structured interviews, related to 42 systems integration projects in 12 organizations in Hong Kong was analyzed in this study. Findings from this analysis highlight three different types of implementation foci that link systems integration initiatives with anticipated benefits. These findings are expected to contribute to a better understanding of the rationale behind small-scale tactical systems integration project initiations and the associated patterns in approaches to systems integration project implementations

Organization knowledge management change from a complex adaptive systems perpective with ability for ambidexeterity

We are working on the confluence of knowledge management, organizational memory and emergent knowledge with the lens of complex adaptive systems. In order to be fundamentally sustainable organizations search for an adaptive need for managing ambidexterity of day-to-day work and innovation. An organization is an entity of a systemic nature, composed of groups of people who interact to achieve common objectives, making it necessary to capture, store and share interactions knowledge with the organization, this knowledge can be generated in intra-organizational or inter-organizational level. The organizations have organizational memory of knowledge of supported on the Information technology and systems. Each organization, especially in times of uncertainty and radical changes, to meet the demands of the environment, needs timely and sized knowledge on the basis of tacit and explicit. This sizing is a learning process resulting from the interaction that emerges from the relationship between the tacit and explicit knowledge and which we are framing within an approach of Complex Adaptive Systems. The use of complex adaptive systems for building the emerging interdependent relationship, will produce emergent knowledge that will improve the organization unique developing

A Component-based Framework for Distributed Business Simulations in E-Business Environments

Simulations preserve the knowledge of complex dynamic systems and consequently transfer the knowledge of the cohesions of its elements to a specified target group. As the progress in information technology and therefore the dynamic e-business driven economy adapts even faster to the business demands, new ways to preserve this growing amount of knowledge have to be found. This paper presents an extensible business simulation framework which is realized as a component-based distributed Java Version 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) architecture. The framework aspires to offer an extensible and domain independent simulation environment which ensures the return of investment in the sense of implementing this framework once and extending it to the future requirements of diverse domains in e-business. The system architecture follows the requirements in offering distributed deployment of its components on highly standardized level by nevertheless staying vendor independent. The architecture itself was developed by model driven architecture (MDA)-conform software engineering methods using best of breed design patterns composed to a flexible micro-architecture which possess import facilities for simulation entities (business objects) and (business) processes from e-business solutions. Combining the features of the framework, the layered pattern driven micro-architecture, and the distributed J2EE architecture, the postulated knowledge transfer from rapid changes in e-business can be realized

Towards a Conceptual Framework of Actors and Factors Affecting the EAI Adoption in Healthcare Organizations

The non-integrated nature of Healthcare Information Systems (HIS) is strongly associated with a reduction in the quality of care and the medical errors that occur. In particular, around 80,000 people die per year or paralyse in Australia due to problems related to medical errors and are mainly caused by the non-integrated nature of HIS. There is therefore a real need to integrate the Information Technology (IT) infrastructures, to improve the quality of care provided. During the last years much emphasis has been given on Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technology to bridge heterogeneous systems. Although EAI is being widely used by public and private organisations, it is underutilised in the area of healthcare. Thus, it is of high importance to investigate this area and result in research that contributes towards successful adoption of EAI. Currently, much of the literature on EAI in healthcare has focused on the identification of the factors that influence its adoption. In this paper, the authors attempt to extend this research area, by identifying the actors involved in the EAI adoption process. In doing so, the paper describes the causal relationships among the healthcare actors and factors that influence its adoption. Thus, the paper results in a novel approach that: (a) identifies the healthcare actors that are involved in the EAI adoption process and (b) combines these actors with the factors influencing the adoption of EAI. The proposed approach is significant, as it (a) extends the existing models on EAI adoption by incorporating an actor-oriented analysis and (b) might enhance the decision-making process for EAI adoption by supporting a more detailed level of analysis

The Virtual Organization: Evidence of Academic Structuration in Business Programs and Implications for Information Science

Virtual forms of organization, including outsourcing, are expected to bring broad, structural transformations to American business. Yet, little is known about the formal response of U.S. Business Schools to the boundary-spanning challenges that virtual organization presents. In this study, key elements of Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST) are utilized as a means to investigate the effects of virtual organization on academic disciplines. Results of a survey of 471 Business School faculty members, including 63 Information Systems faculty, on the role of virtual organization in academic curricula are analyzed in the terms defined by the AST framework. Results indicate significant variation by discipline, concept area, and appropriation of the concepts related to virtual organization. Implications for Information Science include the need for establishing academic leadership as well as attending to perceived limitations in virtual organization tools and technologies. In addition, the results have implications for the ongoing dialogue on the role of Information Science and related academic disciplines

Environment-based design (EBD) approach to enterprise application integration (EAI)

In the past decades, along with the rapid updating of computer technology and extremely expanded business competition, enterprises have begun relying more and more on different applications. However, the short life cycle of these applications and high updating cost make the integration of these applications and their business process a top priority for many enterprises. In such a context, Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) has become a popular research field. EAI is the unrestricted sharing of data and business processes among any connected applications and data source in the enterprise. The goal of EAI is to integrate different applications and let them freely share the same business data and process. The benefits of EAI include cycle time reduction, cost reduction, and cost containment. EAI has attracted many developers and institutes to activity in this field. Many different enterprise application integration methods, tools, and technologies have been developed and introduced to the market; however, there is still no easy and straightforward way to solve EAI problems. The tasks of enterprise application integration are still very challenging. This thesis uses a different and effective approach, which takes the Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) problem as a design problem, and uses the Environment-Based Design (EBD) theory to formulate this problem as well as to generate the final solutions. The advantage of EBD is that it ensures that most defective and imperfect concepts and solutions can be eliminated during the very first stage. The notion of Environment-Based Design methodology was first proposed by Dr. Yong Zeng, based on his Axiomatic theory of design modeling. EBD methodology includes three main stages: environment analysis, conflict identification, and concept generation. These three stages work together to generate and refine, progressively and simultaneously, the design requirements and design solutions. The EBD-EAI approach can help EAI developers to design a successful EAI application in functions with lower costs, and a shorter development time. A real EBD-EAI problem-solving process is described in this thesis to support this new and innovative EAI problem-solving approac

Investigating enterprise application integration (EAI) adoption factors in higher education: an empirical study

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University LondonThe Higher Education (HE) sector of a country is a key area indicating the progress of cultural, political and social growth and development. Public and social demands as well as technological developments add new challenges for this sector. Consequently, higher education institutions have changed and a more flexible IT infrastructure is required to enable them to adapt efficiently to competitive business challenges. Enterprise application integration (EAI) is a technology that effectively integrates intra- and inter-organizational systems. Firstly a systematic review of the EAI literature was conducted. From this review, it was apparent that there are no theoretical models for EAI adoption and evaluation for higher education. Hence, this research contributes a conceptual model that includes influential factors derived from the literature and combines them with the proposed classification of influential factors for HE to produce an EAI conceptual model for the HE domain. To validate this proposed model empirical research was conducted. Then, the model was tested using a qualitative case study approach by means of three case studies that were conducted at different universities. Exploratory, explanatory and interpretive data analysis phases were implemented to find what is the current EAI process of HE and how these institutions currently work. In addition, these phases were employed to identify the EAI adoption factors in HE. As a result of this analysis the conceptual model was modified because of complementary factors that emerged. Therefore, the main contribution of this research is a comprehensive and novel model for EAI adoption in higher education area. The adoption EAI factors were identified by extracting a number of parameters from the empirical data. Several important factors that influence and assist the adoption of EAI in HE were identified. Hence, an additional contribution is the classification of factors in EAI adoption into technical and social factors which provides a better understanding of these factors. A further contribution is the derivation of a new classification of the EAI external and internal pressure factors. The development of a consistent model for the adoption and evaluation of EAI in HE is based on these factors

Investigating the adoption of enterprise application integration in healthcare organisations using an actor-oriented approach

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This dissertation focuses on Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) adoption in healthcare organisations. EAI has emerged to support organisations overcoming their integration problems and it has been adopted by many organisations in various sectors. Despite its importance, the healthcare domain develops EAI solutions at a slower pace and it can be characterised as a laggard comparing to other sectors. The small number of EAI applications in healthcare has resulted in limited research in this area with many issues, like its adoption requiring further investigation. The normative literature analyses the factors that influence EAI adoption in healthcare (MAESTRO model) but it has not yet explored the role of actors during the adoption process. This dissertation makes a step forward and contributes to the body of knowledge as it: (a) highlights the role of healthcare actors and attitudes towards EAI adoption, (b) introduces an actor-oriented approach, (c) derives and proposes a structured method, named Individual, Group, Organisational, Human, Controllers, Acceptors, Providers, Supporters (IGOHcaps), to model how actors might be identified (structured because such a rationale is explicable and such a method is more readily usable when transferred to others), (d) identifies those actors involved in this process, by using the proposed IGOHcaps method and (e) combines the actor-oriented approach with the factors influencing EAI adoption. The author claims that such an approach is significant and novel as: (a) it extends established norms for EAI adoption, by incorporating an actor-oriented analysis and (b) the actors' differing views emerging could enable decision making bodies to produce more robust proposals for EAI adoption. The author discusses the application of this approach by using a qualitative, interpretive, multiple case study research strategy. Empirical data collected from two case organisations show that such an approach contributes towards more robust decisions for EAI adoption and indicates that it is acceptable by the organisations and the interviewees (actors), participated in this research. Despite these results cannot be generalised, they can allow others to relate their views with the ones reported in this dissertation. This dissertation introduces tests and presents a novel approach and model for EAI adoption in healthcare and contributes to the body of knowledge by extending the literature.Funding for this work was obtained from the Brunel University School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics