Business Intelligence in Healthcare Organizations

The management of healthcare organizations starts to recognize the relevance of the definition of care products in relation to management information. In the turmoil between costs, care-results and patient satisfaction the right balance is needed and can be found in upcoming information and communication technology. The ICT developments are a challenge in two directions, inside toward massive Data warehouses , outside toward internet dissemination. These new technologies deliver new solutions for old problems. This paper argues that although the new technology has a high potential, a great deal of the solution will be of an organizational nature. In four cases we show the spectrum from organizational solutions (changing structure and definitions, forms and procedures), to ICT solutions (changing systems and infrastructures).Main results of this study were the notion that model bases, although in theory existent for more than two decades are still scarce in healthcare organizations. Secondl, a big gap, both on content and on price, was noticed between decision oriented and model oriented systems. Finally the definition of terminology and the standardization were time consuming tasks on the road to management information in the four cases studied. Business Intelligence can be the integration between the organizational and ICT component by using a management model and a concept of integrated systems. The use of intranet and internet as communication channels for management information is seen as the challenge for the