TOO FAR AHEAD OF THE IT

CURVE
Assignment 2

JAGDISH LANDE 21PGP093

JANGAM YASWANTH 21PGP094
SUSHMA JOSHI 21PGP098
KHYATI MEENA 21PGP109
KUMBHA DIVYA RUPA 21PGP116
LAVANYA DHRUW 21PGP120
SHIKHA GUPTA 21PGP268
Q1: What are the key issues resented in the case?

Q2: How Max and his leadership team can measure that the SOA project is
successful?

Q3: What you would have done differently if you were in Max’s position?

Q 1: What are the key issues resented in the case?

The current system environment at Peachtree Healthcare is clunky and marginally functional. The
stakes in the health care environment are high. It can be life or death as well as financial. Therefore,
building a plan that uses untested methodology in pioneering rollout effort is not a good decision.

The management must decide to what extent the process should be standardized. It has following
two options:

a. Monolithic information system.

b. Service oriented architecture (SAO).

Monolithic information system is a single set of technologies and applications that will be executed
in every hospital and clinic run by Peachtree Healthcare whereas SAO will be executed to
standardized few of the technologies and processes. Both systems will need significant amount of
money and the benefits are uncertain.

If the management decides to go for monolithic information system, it can have several benefits like
cost savings and better time efficiency. The main advantage is that all the technologies and practices
will be uniform throughout the company. But the Peachtree healthcare has several different
departments such as community hospitals and major teaching institutions. Therefore, it is difficult to
implement single information system that will fit the needs of these departments. Furthermore,
there are many processes that cannot be standardized. That is why complete standardization is not
possible.

Another option is to implement the service-oriented architecture (SAO). The main advantage of
using SAO is that it allows greater flexibility. It can also help the company to standardize few
elements of its IT infrastructure. The main limitations are that it is not executed in the health
services. It is untested and the management do not have enough evidence to prove it efficient.

Q2: How Max and his leadership team can measure that the SOA project is
successful?

Max and his team need to measure the success of SOA as they implement it incrementally. Since
SOA provides flexibility to work differently for different application, it needs to be tested for
various applications.
Beginning with the areas where standardization could be adopted, the cost needed to be low as
compared to alternate options. Standardization should increase the data handling and
processing efficiency at reduced cost and making the processes run more smoothly.

To measure the success in areas where surgical standardization was required and the role of
doctor and patient in decision making was most important, gradual improvements had to done
and hen their effects studied in comparison with existing systems. Also how much more benefit
has resulted due to adoption of SOA with respect to the cost incurred and whether we can
improve the system efficiency and reduce its cost further.

Q3: What you would have done differently if you were in Max’s position?

SOA software design is something new to the health care industry and the outcomes after
establishing SOA cannot be certain with promising results. If I(we) were in place of max, I would
replace some poor functioning components of the infrastructure with the SOA built services,
which are promising to yield a good outcome to the organization. And if the results are
considerably better, we would continue to adopt the change with SOA information systems.
Initial upgradation costs would be much lesser compare to the overall upgradation of the
information systems and infrastructures. If the results are not satisfying changes will be made
accordingly addressing flaws in the initial developments and also providing flexibility to all the
departments serving.