Case Study

An integrated management information system was implemented in the Celestial VIllage Continuum of Care, a 180-bed long-term care facility, owned and operated by a religious order.  When Eudora Darling was recruited as manager of administrative systems, she discovered that the technology used in the administrative office was several generations obsolete and that none of the work processes or job functions had been restructured to take full advantage of information technology.  Statistics were still being collected manually, and calculations were performed by handheld calculators and adding machines using information from manual entries in daily employee logs.  Computer software utilities were available for database management, electronic spreadsheet and statistical functions, and publication quality reporting.  However, the jobs and work processes in the department had to be analyzed and restructured before the staff could take full advantage of this technology (which has become standard in other administrative environments).

Questions

1. What issues must Ms. Darling address in achieving effective implementation of the new technology?

2. What outcomes could she reasonably expect to achieve through an effective job analysis process?

3. Should external consultants or internal staff implement this change?  Explain your response.