Armando Suppa

The implementation of a Performance Management System in the Italian Army

The last reform program in the Italian public sector was realized by legislative decree 150/2009 that introduced the performance cycle, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the public organizations. The performance and its evaluation is one of new public management (NPM) pillars [1]. Control and accountability play an invaluable role in the institutional and organizational change [2]. The Italian Army is involved in this changing process, as well as the other public organizations, by implementing a performance management system (PMS), in order “to do more with less” [3]. By now, the army is in the middle of this process, several steps have been made, but furthers and more critics are going to be done to implement an effective Decision Support System (DSS). This article aims to respond to the following question: How is the Italian Army implementing PMS and what is its impact on the organization?

IT Helps the Italian Army to Implement a Performance Management System

Over the last years, Italian public administrations have been involved in a long-term reform process with the aim of “reinventing” the public sector in accordance with new public management principles. The Italian Army, along with other public organizations, has been engaged in the implementation of a performance management system as stated by Italian law 150/2009. Information Technology (IT) has played an invaluable role during this process. The Italian Army is still developing a business intelligence tool to support its strategic activities. This article investigates on how Italian Army strategies can contribute to the success of implementing an effective performance management systems.

Healthcare providers and IT-enabled organisational processes: the case of the Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Integrata of Verona

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) has become a primary lever of national and international public administration reform (Moon, 2002). The adoption and use of ICT by public organisations to facilitate the administration and delivery of citizen services is defined by the literature as ‘e-government’ (Gronlund, 2004a). An IT-enabled public administration and e-government are the pillars of the reforms launched by the more industrialised countries and this has led the Italian Government to assign priority to electronic healthcare (Bergamaschi et al., 2006), and in particular, to the creation of the electronic health record (longitudinal) or ‘EHR’. This study investigates the implementation of a core element of the EHR, electronic medical records (EMRs), by the Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Integrata (Integrated NHS-University Hospital) of Verona, the deployment of which is expected to spur internal efficiency and pave the way for the development of the longitudinal EHR of the future. It then analyses the organisational impacts of EMRs on the healthcare provider’s structure.