Summary
Objectives: a) To present a regional health care communication system developed in the North
Karelia Hospital District with the help of two EU funded information technology projects
namely the TERVE project (1) which was implemented at the national level financed
by the regional subsidy 6 of the ERDF and the CHIN project (2) that was implemented
at the European level. b) To present the questions and issues that arose when implementing
new technologies in a regional health care environment.
Results: Transformations in information technology are usually parts of other organisational
transformations in health care. As a result of these issues, implementation of great
information technology transformations has failed because of too strong a technology
emphasis, insufficent participative touch and underestimation of social factors. Another
result is that there is a cultural shock for physicians working in organisations where
there are networks rather than hierarchies and relationships are predominantly contractual
rather than professional.
Conclusions: The effectiveness, productivity and profitability of the hospitals will be decisively
dependent on information technology as well as its regional applications. Transformations
in information technology are parts of other organisational transformations in health
care, and can induce cultural shocks for physicians since the networked environment
has a different philosophy than the hierarchy-based environment which was the case
until recently. Finally, in a taxation based system, one key requirement is to understand
that the network contacts and the time spent on networks must bring additional value
to health care.
Keywords
Knowledge intensive work - evolution model - doctor-patient relationship - working
time regime
