Complementary Resources And A Multi-Hospital Emergency Medicine System Pilot Test

This paper reports on an embedded-cases study of three hospitals’ participation in a pilot test of an inter-organizational system which gathered data about medication orders (prescriptions), so physicians can discover drugs a patient might be taking (this is a difficult problem in US emergency medicine, since no single data source exists as a master repository of such information, yet a complete list is sometimes of vital importance). The study revealed the relevant institutional, technical, and organizational resources (assets and capabilities) in use, and their complementary (or non-complementary) effects. Our analysis observes that resources can vary in their complementary/non-complementary effects over time and when deployed for different purposes. We conclude with a discussion of how bundles of complementary institutional, technical and organizational resources support informed collaboration in emergency medicine, and are likely to have similar impacts in other contexts that share the characteristics of high data interdependence, high task interdependence, and high time pressure. We offer suggestions for further research in other health care contexts as well as in contexts such as natural disaster first response, and in contexts with different levels of data or task interdependence and time pressure.