Better and more Efficient Treatment: The Individual and Organizational Impacts of Business Intelligence Use in Health Care Organizations

This study investigates the critical success factors for individuals’ use of business intelligence (BI) in health care organizations. We also examine the organizational impact of BI. We develop a model that expands DeLone and McLean’s IS success model to include task characteristics. To analyze the model, we used a mixed-method approach. First, a questionnaire was sent to BI users, which was completed by 746 respondents. In this step, we found that the expansion of the IS success model enhances the degree of explanation, such that user satisfaction and individual impact are better explained. Second, we investigated the organizational impact through semi-structured interviews. We identified two user types—system users and information users—and we found that BI is used for financial reporting, improving patient progress, and enhancing learning in hospitals. Future research should focus on the impact of tasks on IS success

Records management capacity and compliance toolkits : a critical assessment.

This article seeks to present the results of a project that critically evaluated a series of toolkits for assessing records management capacity and/or compliance. These toolkits have been developed in different countries and sectors within the context of the e-environment and provide evidence of good corporate and information governance. Design/methodology/approach - A desk-based investigation of the tools was followed by an electronic Delphi with toolkit developers and performance measurement experts to develop a set of evaluation criteria. Different stakeholders then evaluated the toolkits against the criteria using cognitive walkthroughs and expert heuristic reviews. The results and the research process were reviewed via electronic discussion. Findings - Developed by recognised and highly respected organisations, three of the toolkits are software tools, whilst the fourth is a methodology. They are all underpinned by relevant national/international records management legislation, standards and good practice including, either implicitly or explicitly, ISO 15489. They all have strengths, complementing rather than competing with one another. They enable the involvement of other staff, thereby providing an opportunity for raising awareness of the importance of effective records management. Practical implications - These toolkits are potentially very powerful, flexible and of real value to organisations in managing their records. They can be used for a "quick and dirty" assessment of records management capacity or compliance as well as in-depth analysis. The most important criterion for selecting the appropriate one is to match the toolkit with the scenario. Originality/value - This paper aims to raise awareness of the range and nature of records management toolkits and their potential for varied use in practice to support more effective management of records

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Geoinformation, Geotechnology, and Geoplanning in the 1990s

Over the last decade, there have been some significant changes in the geographic information available to support those involved in spatial planning and policy-making in different contexts. Moreover, developments have occurred apace in the technology with which to handle geoinformation. This paper provides an overview of trends during the 1990s in data provision, in the technology required to manipulate and analyse spatial information, and in the domain of planning where applications of computer technology in the processing of geodata are prominent. It draws largely on experience in western Europe, and in the UK and the Netherlands in particular, and suggests that there are a number of pressures for a strengthened role for geotechnology in geoplanning in the years ahead

Managed ecosystems of networked objects

Small embedded devices such as sensors and actuators will become the cornerstone of the Future Internet. To this end, generic, open and secure communication and service platforms are needed in order to be able to exploit the new business opportunities these devices bring. In this paper, we evaluate the current efforts to integrate sensors and actuators into the Internet and identify the limitations at the level of cooperation of these Internet-connected objects and the possible intelligence at the end points. As a solution, we propose the concept of Managed Ecosystem of Networked Objects, which aims to create a smart network architecture for groups of Internet-connected objects by combining network virtualization and clean-slate end-to-end protocol design. The concept maps to many real-life scenarios and should empower application developers to use sensor data in an easy and natural way. At the same time, the concept introduces many new challenging research problems, but their realization could offer a meaningful contribution to the realization of the Internet of Things

EVALUATING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR OPERATIONS IN THE INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) portend a future of accelerated information cycles and intensified technology diffusion. As AI applications become increasingly prevalent and complex, Special Operations Forces (SOF) face the challenge of discerning which tools most effectively address operational needs and generate an advantage in the information environment. Yet, SOF currently lack an end user–focused evaluation framework that could assist information practitioners in determining the operational value of an AI tool. This thesis proposes a practitioner’s evaluation framework (PEF) to address the question of how SOF should evaluate AI technologies to conduct operations in the information environment (OIE). The PEF evaluates AI technologies through the perspective of the information practitioner who is familiar with the mission, the operational requirements, and OIE processes but has limited to no technical knowledge of AI. The PEF consists of a four-phased approach—prepare, design, conduct, recommend—that assesses nine evaluation domains: mission/task alignment; data; system/model performance; user experience; sustainability; scalability; affordability; ethical, legal, and policy considerations; and vendor assessment. By evaluating AI through a more structured, methodical approach, the PEF enables SOF to identify, assess, and prioritize AI-enabled tools for OIE.Outstanding ThesisMajor, United States ArmyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

The Beginnings and Prospective Ending of “End-to-End”: An Evolutionary Perspective On the Internet’s Architecture

The technology of “the Internet” is not static. Although its “end-to- end” architecture has made this “connection-less” communications system readily “extensible,” and highly encouraging to innovation both in hardware and software applications, there are strong pressures for engineering changes. Some of these are wanted to support novel transport services (e.g. voice telephony, real-time video); others would address drawbacks that appeared with opening of the Internet to public and commercial traffic - e.g., the difficulties of blocking delivery of offensive content, suppressing malicious actions (e.g. “denial of service” attacks), pricing bandwidth usage to reduce congestion. The expected gains from making “improvements” in the core of the network should be weighed against the loss of the social and economic benefits that derive from the “end-to-end” architectural design. Even where technological “fixes” can be placed at the networks’ edges, the option remains to search for alternative, institutional mechanisms of governing conduct in cyberspace.

Social Computing and Cooperation Services for Connected Government and Cross-Boundary Services Delivery

Connected Government requires different government organizations to connect seamlessly across functions, agencies, and jurisdictions in order to deliver effective and efficient services to citizens and businesses. In the countries of the European Union, this also involves the possibility of delivering cross-border services, which is an important step toward a truly united Europe. To achieve this goal, European citizens and businesses should be able to interact with different public administrations in different Member States in a seamless way to perceive them as a single entity. Interoperability, which is a key factor for Connected Government, is not enough in order to achieve this result, since it usually does not consider the social dimension of organizations. This dimension is at the basis of co-operability, which is a form of non-technical interoperability that allows different organizations to function together essentially as a single organization. In this chapter, it is argued that, due to their unique capacity of coupling several technologies and processes with interpersonal styles, awareness, communication tools, and conversational models, the integration of social computing services and tools within inter-organizational workflows can make them more efficient and effective. It can also support the \u201clearning\u201d process that leads different organizations to achieve co-operability