Potential factors influencing adoption of a service oriented architecture : experiences from specialist healthcare in Norway
Year: 2008
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Specialist healthcare in Norway is an important part of the medical care ”value\nchain” financed by the Norwegian government through the Ministry of Health and\nCare Services. The specialist healthcare sector in Norway is facing increasing\nchallenges amongst others relating to; national reporting, frequent organizational\nand process changes, budget cuts, collaboration across organizational borders and\njudicial issues related to accessing sensitive information.\nPrevious research in other countries has shown the healthcare sector as a lateadopter\nwhen it comes to using new IT paradigms and IT technologies to solve\ncollaboration challenges, even if they have the potential to create a more effective\nworkplace. The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a relatively new approach\nto structuring and managing IS portfolios in a way which could contribute to\nimproved alignment of the use of IT to the strategic goals of the business.\nEstablishing a SOA could therefore be one potential remedy to some of the\nproblems faced by the specialist healthcare sector, but it probably needs to be\nmatched by corresponding organizational and management remedies that support\nthe roles and responsibilities needed to make the SOA operational at the national,\nregional and local level.\nThis thesis sets out to describe and explain what potential factors could be\ninfluencing adoption of a SOA in the specialist healthcare sector of Norway.\nMultiple case studies have been conducted using an empirical research strategy,\nwith an interpretive point of view. This has implied an ideographic perspective,\ninvolving hermeneutics and subjective interpretation by an involved researcher. I\nhave analyzed the data involving the concept of the hermeneutic circle extracting\nthemes from the interviews and aggregating these themes into grand themes.\nThereafter I have compared themes across interviews, viewing the final result\nthrough the lens of previous research.\nMy findings indicate that specialist healthcare has made the decision to adopt a\nSOA, but has in general not made significant advancements beyond that stage.\nThere are indications that much remains to be done if the different stakeholders are\nable to benefit from the advantages promised by a SOA. The suggested conceptual\nframework indicates that process management, information management, IS\nportfolio management as an integrated SOA governance discipline, competence,\nstakeholder support, organization, information security, the adoption of the Web\nServices Architecture, healthcare vendors and standards compliance could all be\npotential factors influencing the adoption of a SOA in specialist healthcare in\nNorway.\nThese findings could be a useful starting point for further research on SOA\nadoption with a more general goal in view. This thesis could also possibly be a\nfundament for possible actions formulated by practitioners in specialist healthcare.
Author: J.A. Gupta
Language: English
Subfield: Management Information Systems
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2470915376