Vaughan Michell

The IT outsourcing market-place: vendors and their selection

This paper focuses on outsourcing vendors, their characteristics and the vendor selection process. It draws on current research and two research studies, one specifically examining outsourcing vendors and the other examining vendor-client issues. We first outline the development of the market for the outsourcing of information technology/information systems services and activities, then detail the characteristics of different types of vendor companies and their competitive positions, before providing a client perspective to the issue of vendor selection.

A FOCUSED APPROACH TO BUSINESS CAPABILITY

The term ‘business capability’ is widely used and generally understood, but definitions vary greatly and are often insufficiently detailed to avoid confusion. Business processes are often mistakenly seen directly as a capability without any specific detail that would differentiate such a capability or process in a similar competitive firm or business. The increasing use of enterprise architecture approaches in consulting practice to analyse and make critical business change decisions such as business service divestment or outsourcing has resulted in the need to develop a more specific focused definition in order to differentiate between capabilities and their enabling resources. This paper seeks to create a focused and specific business capability definition that reduces confusion and enables clarity in defining capabilities within an enterprise. The approach reviews and categorises existing definitions, identifying four key elements of capability that are then analysed using resource based theory and operations theory to produce an integrated definition. The paper proposes an operational definition of resource capability relating to driving and passive resources. A structured tabulation is proposed that enables specific capabilities to be defined in terms of a delivery process, tangible and intangible resources used or consumed and the specific value added by the capability.

A design of business-technology alignment consulting framework

Current work on applying scientific methods to capture the cultural values as requirements for business-IT alignment has been scarce, even though organisations acknowledge its significant impact. This paper introduces a Business-Technology Alignment Consulting Framework that adopts an Organisational Semiotics approach to capture cultural values from both formal norms and informal hidden social norms that can significantly impact the actual vs perceived alignment. A set of techniques in the framework are described for its use in conducting consulting analysis. Business Service Analysis is the core analysis that provides the holistic structure of the business services. Business Service Valuation calculates the service cultural values to complement the Business Service Analysis. Business Service Norms Analysis captures the business norms that govern the business service. A case study example is used to illustrate the analysis templates to holistically represent the business services. The significance of the consulting framework and future work are also discussed.

Evaluating business value of IT towards optimisation of the application portfolio

Information technology has become heavily embedded in business operations. As business needs change over time, IT applications are expected to continue providing required support. Whether the existing IT applications are still fit for the business purpose they were intended or new IT applications should be introduced is a strategic decision for business, IT and business-aligned IT. In this article, we present a method that aims to analyse business functions and IT roles and to evaluate business-aligned IT from both social and technical perspectives. The method introduces a set of techniques that systematically supports the evaluation of the existing IT applications in relation to their technical capabilities for maximising business value. Furthermore, we discuss the evaluation process and results that are illustrated and validated through a real-life case study of a UK borough council and followed by discussion on implications for researchers and practitioners.

Handbook of Research on Patient Safety and Quality Care through Health Informatics

Medical and health activities can greatly benefit from the effective use of health informatics. By capturing, processing, and disseminating information to the correct systems and processes, decision-making can be more successful and quality care and patient safety would see significant improvements. The Handbook of Research on Patient Safety and Quality Care through Health Informatics highlights current research and trends from both professionals and researchers on health informatics as applied to the needs of patient safety and quality care. Bringing together theory and practical approaches for patient needs, this book is essential for educators and trainers at multiple experience levels in the fields of medicine and medical informatics.

The Capability Affordance Model: Comparing Medical Capabilities

Existing capability models lack qualitative and quantitative means to compare business capabilities. This paper extends previous work and uses affordance theories to consistently model and analyse capabilities. We use the concept of objective and subjective affordances to model capability as a tuple of a set of resource affordance system mechanisms and action paths, dependent on one or more critical affordance factors. We identify an affordance chain of subjective affordances by which affordances work together to enable an action and an affordance path that links action affordances to create a capability system. We define the mechanism and path underlying capability. We show how affordance modelling notation, AMN, can represent affordances comprising a capability. We propose a method to quantitatively and qualitatively compare capabilities using efficiency, effectiveness and quality metrics. The method is demonstrated by a medical example comparing the capability of syringe and needless anaesthetic systems.

Adapted customer relationship management implementation framework: facilitating value creation in nursing homes

This paper proposes a framework to support customer relationship management (CRM) implementation in nursing homes. This work critically considers existing studies, which conducted in-depth questionnaires to identify critical CRM features (termed value-characteristics) that were identified as potentially adding the most value to nursing homes if implemented. Although the existing research proposed an implementation framework, summary of, and inconsistent inclusion of value-characteristics, limits the practical use of this contribution during implementation. In this paper we adapt the originally proposed framework to correct perceived deficiencies. We link the value characteristics to operational, analytical, strategic and/or collaborative CRM solution types, to allow consideration in context of practical implementation solutions. The outcome of this paper shows that, practically, a ‘one solution meets all characteristic’ approach to CRM implementation within nursing homes is inappropriate. Our framework, however, supports implementers in identifying how value can be gained when implementing a specific CRM solution within nursing homes; which subsequently supports project management and expectation management.

Semiotics-Oriented Method for Generation of Clinical Pathways

Large numbers of people continue to be successfully cared for and treated in the National Health Service, but a significant number of errors and other forms of harm occur. These errors are mainly a result of human error or occur in consequence of poor process, procedure and control design. In this paper, we present a semiotic approach to generating clinical pathways by capturing knowledge from syntactic level to social level and guiding the modelling of clinical pathways using Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) best practice to visualise the process. This will result in more rigorous control and visibility of the care process ensuring completeness, consistency and patient safety by enabling the mapping of formal and informal/safety controls into clinical pathways.

The Internet of Things and Opportunities for Pervasive Safety Monitored Health Environments

This chapter discusses the opportunities for new ubiquitous computing technologies, with concentration on the Internet of Things (IoT), to improve patient safety and quality. The authors focus on elective or planned surgical interventions, although the technology is applicable to primary and trauma care. The chapter is divided into three main sections with section 1 covering medical error issues and mechanisms, section 2 introducing Internet of Things, and section 3 discussing how IoT capabilities may address and reduce medical errors. The authors explore the existing theory of errors expounded by Reason (Reason, 2000, 1998; Leape, 1994) to identify perception-, decision-, and knowledge-based medical errors and related processes, environments, and cultural drivers causing error. The authors then introduce the technology of the Internet of Things and identify a range of capabilities from sensing, tracking, control, cooperative, and semantic reasoning. They then show how these new capabilities might be applied to reduce the errors expounded by the discussed error theories. They identify that: IoT enables augmentation of objects, which provides a massive increase in information transfer, thus improving clinician perception and support for decision-making and problem solving; IoT provides a host of additional observers and opportunities, which can shift the focus of overworked clinicians from constant monitoring to undertaking complex actions, such as decision making and care; IoT networks of sensors and actuators, through the addition of semantic and contextual rules, support decision making and facilitate automated monitoring and control of pervasive safety-monitored health environments, thus reducing clinician workload. The Internet of Things and Opportunities for Pervasive Safety Monitored Health Environments Vaughan Michell University of Reading, UK DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4546-2.ch020

A method for modeling of KPIs enabling validation of their properties

Key performance indicators (KPIs) play an important role in making decisions for correct and timely investments. Validation of desired properties of KPIs demands the execution of business processes. However, KPIs are often designed for a business sector assuming fragmental knowledge about business processes. The validation of properties of KPIs is postponed until the KPIs application in business processes of organizations. This approach often results in misleading KPIs. We present a method that enables validation of KPI properties without implementation of KPIs in organizations. The method takes advantages of a combination of goal modeling, conceptual modeling and executable Protocol Modeling. The compositional semantics of Protocol Modelling allows for building abstract executable protocol models using the fragmental information about business processes. The goal models and conceptual models are used for analysing the results of the process execution and reasoning about properties. The method is demonstrated with a real KPI document from the medical sector.