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Crossing the Implementation Chasm: A Proposal for Bold Action

Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

^_* Correspondence: Laurie L. Novak, PhD, 400 Eskind Biomedical Library, 2209 Garland Ave, Nashville, TN 37232-8340 (Email: Laurie.L.Novak{at}Vanderbilt.edu).

Received for publication: 08/06/07; accepted for publication: 02/02/08.

As health care organizations dramatically increase investment in information technology (IT) and the scope of their IT projects, implementation failures become critical events. Implementation failures cause stress on clinical units, increase risk to patients, and result in massive costs that are often not recoverable. At an estimated 28% success rate, the current level of investment defies management logic. This paper asserts that there are "chasms" in IT implementations that represent risky stages in the process. Contributors to the chasms are classified into four categories: design, management, organization, and assessment. The American College of Medical Informatics symposium participants recommend bold action to better understand problems and challenges in implementation and to improve the ability of organizations to bridge these implementation chasms. The bold action includes the creation of a Team Science for Implementation strategy that allows for participation from multiple institutions to address the long standing and costly implementation issues. The outcomes of this endeavor will include a new focus on interdisciplinary research and an inter-organizational knowledge base of strategies and methods to optimize implementations and subsequent achievement of organizational objectives.

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