This book presents a wide variety of HIT failures so that students can dissect and understand in each case what went wrong and why and how to avoid such problems, without focusing on the involvement of specific people, organizations, or vendors. The lessons may be applied to future and existing projects, or used to understand why a previous project failed. The cases help students learn how common causes of failure affect different kinds of HIT projects and with different results.


The book presents a model to discuss HIT failures in a safe and protected manner, providing an opportunity to focus on the lessons offered by a failed initiative as opposed to worrying about potential retribution for exposing a project as having failed. Cases are organized by the type of focus (hospital care, ambulatory care, and community). Each case provides analysis by an author who was involved in the project expert insight into key obstacles that must be overcome to leverage IT and transform healthcare.


Cases include a list of key words and are categorized by project (e.g. CPOE, business intelligence). Each chapter or case contains discussion questions and study suggestions for the student. Thought provoking commentary chapters add additional context to the challenges faced during HIT projects, from social and organizational to legal and contractual. Whether you’re a graduate student in a health administration or health IT program or attending training sessions sponsored by a healthcare organization, this valuable resource is for all who want to understand the dynamics of HIT projects and why some fail and others succeed.