IT-enabled work innovation

Use of information and communication technologies to support effective work practice innovation in the health sector: A multi-site study

IT innovation

Project members - Macquarie University

Professor Johanna Westbrook
Professor and Director

Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite
Professor and Director

Associate Professor Joanne Callen
Honorary Associate Professor

Professor Andrew Georgiou
Professor

Project main description

Health systems face considerable challenges in meeting increasing demands for highly sophisticated services with limited resources and a shortage of health professionals. The introduction of information technology (IT) is a key strategy to meet these challenges. Health systems internationally are making vast investments in IT. Yet there is clear evidence that we may not obtain a good return on this investment as we do not know the best ways to use IT in the health sector to create new ways of working which improve productivity and safety. This project will produce tested models for how IT can be used to support innovative work practices and will measure the impact of these on productivity, safety, efficiency and cost of services.

Australia must develop and implement new models of health service provision to increase capacity and reduce errors within workforce and resource constraints. Working with one of the largest area health services in NSW this project will address this challenge. The results will directly benefit the community by creating and testing new models for how health professionals can use information technologies to improve the safety, quality and efficiency of health care services delivery. The findings will underpin national efforts to improve the productivity and effectiveness of the health workforce and its ability to respond to changing demands. The effective use of IT is a critical enabling factor for national productivity and growth.

Aims

This project aims to develop and test new models for using ICT to support work practice innovation which in turn produce measurable improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of the health system. We will develop these models for three large-scale ICT systems being adopted in Australia and overseas (A. computerised ordering systems, B. ambulatory electronic medical record systems and C. emergency medicine information systems). We will:

Investigate, measure and analyse the role of ICT in supporting work practice innovation
Determine factors which enable or inhibit ICT-supported work innovation
Measure the impact of ICT-supported work innovation on organisational productivity, effectiveness, efficiency and cost
Apply the findings from 1-3 to develop and test new models for the use of ICT to support innovative work practice change in the health sector.

As part of this project we are conducting a systematic review of the literature measuring the impact of computerised provider order entry (CPOE) systems on clinical care indicators in emergency departments. See protocol here.