Healthcare IT Project Failure: A Systems Perspective

This case describes the experiences of a healthcare organization in the North of England that introduced a multi-lingual electronic patient information system, the first of its kind in this part of the country. This information technology (IT) based project, commissioned as a pilot for the establishment of an information system to cater to the needs of ethnic minority languages, failed to make progress in-spite of its great potential, and the user satisfaction that it offered. The case presents a number of issues related to how the design and deployment of the project resulted in its lack of satisfactory progress. The findings from this case suggest why the project failed: the failure being a direct result of the approach taken to the project.