each department of the organization, department heads have heretofore been responsible for development and operation of their own "departmental" systems. While each of these "departmental" systems is structured on a local area network (LAN), these "islands of technology" are not linked into a clinic-wide network tied into the central AS/400 platform.
Furthermore, operation of the AS/400 computer data center, as well as its associated terminals and networks, has been outsourced.
Like most businesses today, the Dearborn Clinic faces competitive forces in its marketplace. In order to remain the leading healthcare provider in the region, the Dearborn Clinic needs to reduce operating costs, improve overall operating efficiency, as well as reorganize and revamp its existing AS/400 based (midrange) information technology infrastructure.
The decisions necessary for making an informed choice related to the correct hardware and software platform are important, however so are a number of other factors. A strategic analysis is presented which will identify the principal driving elements in the decision process and thereby serve as a guide for the ownership of the Dearborn Clinic in their decision-making process towards a re-implementation of all necessary hardware and software at both the enterprise level and at the level of the individual departments.
Management Information Systems Today
The continually decreasing cost of microprocessor and PC technology has significantly affected the choices available to those wishing to upgrade or enhance their current management information system. In the middle to latter part of the 1980s, the term "client/server" became very much in vogue. Like most terms in the lexicon of the computer world, it had a wide definition, often dependent upon which vendor was doing the defining. Forrester Research Inc. in their report entitled "Re-Sizing Client/Server" (1991), defined the term to mean mi...