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

Examining the socio-economic determinants of adoption of the 'Government Gateway' initiative in the UK

This paper empirically examines the impact of socio-economic determinants upon the adoption of a recent UK e-government initiative, the 'Government Gateway'. The data on five socio-economic characteristics was collected employing a postal survey. The findings of this research suggest that the three variables of age, gender and occupation significantly differentiated the adopters from the non-adopters of the Government Gateway, whilst education and income were found to be non-significant. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context of promoting the adoption of emerging Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and reducing the digital divide against less privileged parts of the population

Information systems and healthcare XXIV: Factors affecting the EAI adoption in the healthcare sector

Recent developments in the field of integration technologies like Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) have emerged to support organizations towards improving the quality of services and reducing integration costs. Despite the importance of EAI, there is limited empirical research reported on its adoption in the healthcare sector. Khoumbati et al. [2006] developed a model for the evaluation of EAI in healthcare organizations. In doing so, the causal interrelationship of EAI adoption factors was identified by using fuzzy cognitive mapping. This paper is a progression of previous work in the area and seeks to contribute by validating the model through a different case environment. Thus, this paper contributes by deriving and proposing the MAESTRO model for EAI adoption. MAESTRO identifies a set of factors that influence EAI adoption and it is evaluated through a real-life case study. It provides an understanding of the EAI adoption process through its grounding on empirical data. In doing so, the MAESTRO model supports the management of healthcare organizations during the decision-making process for EAI adoption