Academic literature on the topic 'Hospitals Organizational effectiveness Decision support systems. Hospital Administration. Decision Support Systems, Management'

The information systems have assumed a central role in the health sector. Particularly in the public domain, health institutions have traditionally been marked by management practices based on contextual contingencies without much concern of the accurate results and their assessment. The traditional concern about the low efficiency and effectiveness in managing public resources has been replaced by the emerging and urgent need for rational management instruments and methods. This need presents the opportunity for a new management paradigm that should not be restricted to the financial aspects of health institutions, but it should include all dimensions of core and non-core activities. The budget slippages and ruptures cannot continue being used as the excuse for the need of systematic and permanent increase of financial resources spent on provision of public health services, often justified by an increasing of the population or the average life expectancy. The budget problems and difficulties of the Portuguese State, particularly the urgent need of the expenditure growth control, show the need of a new management paradigm. This demand has caused, on the one hand, a heavy investment in information technologies to support management decisions, and on the other hand, it has shown other problems, such as the difficulty experienced in the architectural integration of information and technologies as well as problems of a significant complexity and high resource consumption. This chapter discusses the current information systems for management decision support in Portuguese public hospitals based on the analysis of a district hospital in Portugal.

The information systems have assumed a central role in the health sector. Particularly in the public domain, health institutions have traditionally been marked by management practices based on contextual contingencies without much concern of the accurate results and their assessment. The traditional concern about the low efficiency and effectiveness in managing public resources has been replaced by the emerging and urgent need for rational management instruments and methods. This need presents the opportunity for a new management paradigm that should not be restricted to the financial aspects of health institutions, but it should include all dimensions of core and non-core activities. The budget slippages and ruptures cannot continue being used as the excuse for the need of systematic and permanent increase of financial resources spent on provision of public health services, often justified by an increasing of the population or the average life expectancy. The budget problems and difficulties of the Portuguese State, particularly the urgent need of the expenditure growth control, show the need of a new management paradigm. This demand has caused, on the one hand, a heavy investment in information technologies to support management decisions, and on the other hand, it has shown other problems, such as the difficulty experienced in the architectural integration of information and technologies as well as problems of a significant complexity and high resource consumption. This chapter discusses the current information systems for management decision support in Portuguese public hospitals based on the analysis of a district hospital in Portugal.

In the current organizational context, in which there is a fierce competitiveness and a constant need for more timely, relevant, and reliable information to support the decision making and achieve the strategic and operational objectives, Continuous Assurance has assumed an important role as a management goal and in ensuring improved effectiveness of organizations. This works provides the concept of Continuous Assurance, its objectives and components, and a model which allows both to evaluate information systems with Continuous Assurance services and to help design the requirements of new ones. Finally, some implementations are also presented providing a comprehensive understanding the state-of-the-art and the benefits of Continuous Assurance.