David Sammon

A context aware wireless body area network (BAN)

In monitoring a patients real-time vital signs through Body Area Networks (BAN), rich data sources are communicated to medical practitioners. The benefit of BANs may be negated if medical practitioners are overloaded with streams of BAN data. It is essential that data is delivered in a timely context aware manner. In this paper a BAN designed for falls assessment among elder patients (65+ years) is presented, with an emphasis on the communication scheme chosen. The FrameComm MAC protocol described in this paper employs three data management techniques, 1) message priority, 2) opportunistic aggregation and 3) an adaptive duty cycle, all of which are designed to ensure that patient vital signs (i.e. data packets) are delivered under a variety of network loads. The protocol is evaluated using a small laboratory network, initially configured to communicate Beat-to-Beat (continuous blood pressure) readings when a patient goes from a sitting to a standing position and then with added ECG (ElectroCardioGram) readings.

Project preparedness and the emergence of implementation problems in ERP projects

The problems that organizations face in implementing an enterprise-wide ERP project are linked to their level of understanding of what is involved in such an endeavor and how it influences their initial preparations. We sought to demonstrate empirically the causal relationship between the organizations preparedness and the emergence of implementation problems. We examined four case studies to extract insight into the criticality of certain factors and the type of problems created when no moderating measures were taken by project managers. Consequently, we developed a predictor-outcome model mapping a lack of preparedness with implementation problems.

The ten commandments of data warehousing

Data warehousing can offer great potential for organizations. Nevertheless, implementing a data warehouse is a complex project that has caused difficulty for organizations. This paper presents the results of a study of four mature users of data warehousing technology. Collectively, these organizations have experienced many problems and solutions in relation to implementing data warehousing. These experience are captured in the form of ten organizational prerequisites for implementing data warehousing. The authors believe that this model could potentially be used by organizations to internally assess the likelihood of data warehousing project success, and to identify the areas that require attention prior to commencing implementation.

Towards a framework for evaluating investments in data warehousing

. Data warehousing technology offers organizations the potential for much greater exploitation of informational assets. However, the evaluation of potential investments in this technology poses problems for organizations as traditional evaluation methods are constrained when dealing with strategic IT applications. Nevertheless, many organizations are procedurally obliged to use such methods for evaluating data warehousing investments. This paper identifies five problems with using such methods in these circumstances: evaluating intangible benefits; making the relationship between IT and profitability explicit; dealing with the vanishing status quo; dealing with the extended investment time frame; and evaluating infrastructural investments. The authors studied how four organizations in the UK and Ireland attempted to overcome these problems when introducing data warehousing, and propose a framework for evaluating data warehousing investments. This framework consists of a high-level analysis of the economic environment and of the information intensity of the relationship between the organization and its customers. Based on the outcome of this analysis, the authors propose four factors that have to be managed during the evaluation process in order to ensure that the limitations of the traditional evaluation techniques do not adversely affect the evaluation process. These factors are: commitment and sponsorship; the approach to evaluation; the time scale of benefits; and the appraisal techniques used.

The Enterprise Resource Planning Decade: Lessons Learned and Issues for the Future

The Enterprise Resource Planning Decade: Lessons Learned and Issues for the Future presents a collection of chapters written by various experts that share a interest in the ERP movement. This collection will generate much interest and contribute to the development of Enterprise-wide systems that provide true support to organizations and the development of methodologies that are less disruptive of organizational day-to-day business than is the case today. When ERP projects stop being the make or break ventures they can be and we stop getting these negative reports about failed implementation, the target will have been met and the ERP market will be less of a jungle than it is today.

Effects of centrally acting ACE inhibitors on the rate of cognitive decline in dementia

Objectives There is growing evidence that antihypertensive agents, particularly centrally acting ACE inhibitors (CACE-Is), which cross the blood–brain barrier, are associated with a reduced rate of cognitive decline. Given this, we compared the rates of cognitive decline in clinic patients with dementia receiving CACE-Is (CACE-I) with those not currently treated with CACE-Is (NoCACE-I), and with those who started CACE-Is, during their first 6 months of treatment (NewCACE-I). Design Observational case–control study. Setting 2 university hospital memory clinics. Participants 817 patients diagnosed with Alzheimers disease, vascular or mixed dementia. Of these, 361 with valid cognitive scores were included for analysis, 85 CACE-I and 276 NoCACE-I. Measurements Patients were included if the baseline and end-point (standardised at 6 months apart) Standardised Mini-Mental State Examination (SMMSE) or Quick Mild Cognitive Impairment (Qmci) scores were available. Patients with comorbid depression or other dementia subtypes were excluded. The average 6-month rates of change in scores were compared between CACE-I, NoCACE-I and NewCACE-I patients. Results When the rate of decline was compared between groups, there was a significant difference in the median, 6-month rate of decline in Qmci scores between CACE-I (1.8 points) and NoCACE-I (2.1 points) patients (p=0.049), with similar, non-significant changes in SMMSE. Median SMMSE scores improved by 1.2 points in the first 6 months of CACE treatment (NewCACE-I), compared to a 0.8 point decline for the CACE-I (p=0.003) group and a 1 point decline for the NoCACE-I (p=0.001) group over the same period. Multivariate analysis, controlling for baseline characteristics, showed significant differences in the rates of decline, in SMMSE, between the three groups, p=0.002. Conclusions Cognitive scores may improve in the first 6 months after CACE-I treatment and use of CACE-Is is associated with a reduced rate of cognitive decline in patients with dementia.

Towards a model of organisational prerequisites for enterprise‐wide systems integration: Examining ERP and data warehousing

Purpose – The need for an integrated enterprise‐wide approach to management information pronounced data warehousing (DW) the “hot topic” of the early‐to‐mid‐1990s. However, it became unfashionable in the late 1990s, with the widespread implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. With ERP managers were led to believe that they would derive informational as well as operational benefits from the introduction of integrated enterprise‐wide systems. However, the recent re‐emergence of DW, to address the limitations and unrealised benefits of ERP systems, provides a new, more complex integration challenge. The main objective of this paper is to present the concept of organisational prerequisites for enterprise‐wide integration projects as a means to help managers preparing for and managing their ERP/DW projects.Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on existing literature on ERP and DW implementations. It puts forward a model to be further tested and validated by ERP researchers.Finding...

Project management: a case study of a successful ERP implementation

Purpose – The success rate of enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations is not high in view of the sums invested by organisations in these applications. It has often been indicated that a combination of inadequate preparedness and inappropriate project management have been responsible for the low‐success rate of ERP implementations. The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of a successful ERP implementation.Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors use a case study of a very successful roll out of an ERP application in the Irish subsidiary of a UK multinational to investigate the validity of one of the most commonly cited project management frameworks, the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK), to ERP projects. Discussing each category of the framework in turn, the case data to illustrate where the PMBOK framework is a good fit or needs refining for ERP projects is used.Findings – It is found that, by and large, PMBOK, because it is a very broad framework, can sh...

Using mindfulness to examine ISD agility

As information systems development (ISD) organisations face increasing market demands, strategies such as agile development have been used to help address these demands. Now, as information systems (IS) research in agile development is gaining in theoretical rigour, this study explores the use of mindfulness as a theoretical framework to examine ISD agility. At its core, the mindfulness theoretical concept promotes a focus on ‘continuous attention to detail’ and ‘vigilance to minimise errors and respond effectively to unexpected events’. Incorporating a sixteen month ongoing longitudinal case study of an ISD organisation, this research provides an insight into the practice of what we term ‘doing’ agile and ‘being’ agile, while also providing a number of theoretical contributions around the value of mindfulness for ISD agility.

Bottom‐up or top‐down?: A comparative analysis of electronic health record diffusion in Ireland and Israel

Purpose – The limited success of electronic health records (EHRs) implementation in the healthcare services in general, and a national EHR in particular, requires better understand and documentation of the current drivers and inhibitors of EHR adoption, together with a definition of a national EHR. This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approach – Factors affecting EHR adoptions are elicited from extant literature and the stakeholder/actor framework is used as the theoretical framework. The multiple case study approach is used as the research method, and data are collected in Ireland and Israel by interviews and analysed using text coding methods.Findings – Factors elicited in the literature are generally corroborated, yet the salient factor on the localized perspective appears to be the degree of centralization of the healthcare services; while different factors affect the national perspective. In summary, it seems that Israel is more ready for national EHR implementation than Ireland...