Application Portfolio Management in Hospitals: Empirical Insights

Application portfolio management concerns the management of all technology and applications, and is a complex task under pressure of increasing collaboration among hospitals. Various approaches to application portfolio management are described in existing literature, but are directed at commercial enterprises rather than health care organizations. Addressing this deficiency, this article presents the results of three case studies conducted at Dutch hospitals surveying current application portfolio management processes. Results show differences between the three hospitals. One hospital implemented a continuous application portfolio management process. The other hospitals perform ad-hoc IT management due to, among others, lacking support from management, decentralized IT governance structures and an increasing need for technical integration. This article can assist IT executives in making better informed decisions, while it provides a step towards a better understanding of the complex application portfolio management process in hospitals for academia.