Variations
The specific governance structures just described are typical in medium-sized and large provider or payer organizations. In other types of health care set tings, these structures will be different.
A medium-sized physician group might not have a separate board. The physicians and the practice manager might make up the board and the senior leadership forum. The group might not need a CIO. Instead the practice administrator might manage contracts and relationships with companies that
Carol Brown and Vallabh Sambamurthy have identified five mechanisms used by IT groups to improve their coordination and working relationships with the rest of the organization.
1. Integrators are individuals who are responsible for linking a particular organization department or function with the IT department. An integrator might be a CIO who is a participant in senior management forums. An integrator might also be an IT person who is responsible for working with the finance department on IT initiatives that are centered on that function; such a person might have a title such as manager, financial information systems.
2. Groups are committees and task forces that regularly bring IT staff [members] and organization staff [members] together to work collectively on IT issues. These groups could include, for example, the information systems steering committee or a standing joint meeting between IT and nursing to address current IT issues and review the status of ongoing IT initiatives.
3. Processes are organizational approaches to management activity such as developing the IT budget, selecting new applications, and implementing new systems. These processes invariably involve both IT and non-IT staff [members].
4. Informal relationship building includes a series of activities such as one-on-one meetings, IT staff presentations at department head meetings, and co-location of IT staff [members] and user staff [members].
5. Human resource practices include training IT staff [members] on team building, offering user feedback to IT staff [members] during their reviews, and having IT staff [members] spend time in a user area observing work.
