Implementation Issues of Enterprise data Warehousing and Business Intelligence in the Healthcare Industry

The healthcare industry is following the lead of other industries and finding value in enterprise data warehousing (EDW) and business intelligence (BI) tools. Healthcare organizations are leveraging these tools to provide a plethora of benefits realized through enhanced business operations and performance. The EDW combines data from multiple source systems across an enterprise, and BI tools extract the data in meaningful ways to enable managers to make the best informed decisions. As with all management information systems, there are technical issues to be considered that impact the design, build, implementation, and support of the system. These benefits and challenges are explored, as well as special considerations necessary for the healthcare industry compared to other industries utilizing data warehousing and business intelligence. This paper investigates these critical issues and provides suggestions to harness the implementation of EDW and BI in the healthcare industry

Successful E-Learning in Corporations

This paper seeks to explore the concepts and best practices of successful e-learning in corporations. It will first describe what e-learning is as well as its history in relation to educational models. A brief introduction will cover the variety types of e-learning. The paper will then provide information on e-learning limitations such as various standards, lack of infrastructure and architecture, and at length discuss employee motivation and cultural resistance to e-learning. Organizational advantages and benefits of e-learning will be outlined. Some of them include cost savings on travel, globalization, improved value-chain activities, and return on investment. Finally the paper will present some success stories and discuss the future implications of e-learning in corporations

An Observation of Healthcare Knowledge Management

Healthcare within the U.S. is reaching a point where the facilities and doctors are collecting large amounts of patient and practice related information. The goal of cost savings is driving investment growth in healthcare technology. The introduction of knowledge management and the ability to leverage IT solutions can provide a means for which the healthcare industry can meet the demand for care that is growing with the increase of population and the gradual retirement of baby boomers. However, the advancements in health informatics along with knowledge management practices currently present challenges in terms of adoption. Therefore, this paper discusses the role of knowledge management and issues of knowledge management implementation in healthcare industry. Knowledge management practices have benefited many industries ranging from banking to retailing. It is widely believed that KM will also benefit the healthcare industry if KM implementation is properly planned and executed. KM may possibly change the way in which hospitals, doctors, and patients interact

Adopting E-Business in Small and Medium Enterprise

Companies have grown sigificantly due to internet and electronic business (e-business). E- Business has become a part of everyday life for individuals and organizations. E-business systems used to be costly and only large organizations could afford to implement them. The recently developed information technologies including web-based applications have made e-business systems cost effective and easy to implement for medium and small enterprises (SMEs). For the purposes of this paper, a small business is defined to have fewer than 250 employees, and a medium size business is defined to have fewer than 500 employees

The Impact of Mergers and Acquisitions on Information Systems: A Case of A Software Industry Acquisition

A company named Syscom was recently acquired by another company, Matcom. Both companies were focused on software development in similar markets, however, the Management Information Systems (MIS) decisions made by each company have resulted in significant differences as to how employees go about the business of developing, selling and supporting software. This paper highlights how Information Systems (IS) decisions made at these two companies enabled different ways for people to work together along with affecting various aspects of business operations and team communications. In addition, this paper presents issues with the integration of Syscom with the Matcom IS structure as a result of the acquisition of Syscom. Managerial implications are drawn from the discussion

The Effects of Relationship Commitment and Trust on Business to Consumer Electronic Commerce - The Case of Taiwan

Electronic commerce has gained strong momentum across various industry sectors since the release of the commercial browser of Netscape. However, the sharp meltdown of dot com companies in the past three years inspires us to investigate the causes of failures and the factors of success. We postulated that there is a lack of relationship commitment and trust among the electronic commerce partakers. This paper focuses on the business to consumer segment of the electronic commerce regarding the effects of relationship commitment and trust. After surveying more than 250 online consumers in Taiwan, we found that the commitment and trust factors play vital role in customer retention that support our hypotheses

The Impact of Emergent Web 2.0 on Virtual Teams

Project management as it is known today is relatively new. The concepts and theories of managing projects and teams have developed over the past several decades. A large influence on project management has been in the utilization of information technologies to manage projects and teams. Emergence of Web 2.0 tools has made it easier for companies to conduct projects using virtual teams. This paper reviews the concept of virtual teams and tools available to enhance the virtual team’s ability to communicate, collaborate, and contribute. A review of virtual team development will provide foundation for how risks and trust play an impact on team performance. For these virtual teams trust is a major factor in their success or failure. Another factor impacting team performance is employee satisfaction, their need for networking and how they perceive bonds within their networks

Strong Aperiodic X-ray Variability and Quasi-Periodic Oscillation in X-ray Nova XTE J1550-564

We report the discovery of strong aperiodic X-ray variability and quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) in the X-ray light curves of a new X-ray Nova, XTE J1550-564, and the evolution of the observed temporal properties during the rise of the recent X-ray outburst. The power spectral analysis of the first observation reveals strong aperiodic X-ray variability of the source (~28%), as well as the presence of a QPO at ~82 mHz with fractional rms amplitude ~14% over the 2-60 keV energy range. Also apparent is the first harmonic of the QPO with the amplitude ~9%. As the X-ray flux increases, the source tends to become less variable, and the QPO frequency increases rapidly, from 82 mHz to 4 Hz, over the flux (2-50 keV) range of 1.73-5.75 x 10^{-8} ergs cm^{-2} s^{-1}. The amplitude of the fundamental component of the QPO varies little, while that of the harmonic follows a decreasing trend. The fundamental component strengthens toward high energies, while its harmonic weakens. Initially, the power spectrum is roughly flat at low frequencies and turns into a power law at high frequencies, with the QPO harmonic sitting roughly at the break. In later observations, however, the high-frequency portion of the continuum can actually be better described by a broken power law (as opposed to a simple power law). This effect becomes more apparent at higher energies. The overall amplitude of the continuum shows a similar energy dependence to that of the fundamental component of the QPO. Strong rapid X-ray variability, as well as hard energy spectrum, makes XTE J1550-564 a good black hole candidate. We compare its temporal properties with those of other black hole candidates.Comment: 12 pages, including 5 figures. To appear in ApJ Letters, vol. 512 (1999

Managers\u27 Perceived Benefits of Using Electronic Procurement in Taiwan

Facing the competitive pressure from new hospitals and new regulations from the Bureau of National Health Insurance, hospital managers in Taiwan are concentrating on reducing the hospital operation costs and improving the healthcare quality. Practitioners and academic researchers agree that reducing the pharmacy cost is one of the best solutions to sustain competitive advantage. As electronic commerce becomes popular in many industry sectors, e- procurement is growing rapidly in the healthcare industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the managers\u27 perceptions of benefits of using electronic procurement system. After surveying 152 hospitals in Taiwan, we find that hospital size and adoption status have significant influence on many perceived benefits. Managers in large hospitals show stronger confidence in the perceived benefits of using e-procurement than their counterparts of small hospitals