Managing Change
An Overview
- Affiliations of the authors: University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio (NML); Riley Associates, Cincinnati (RTR)
- Correspondence and reprints: Nancy M. Lorenzi, PhD, University of Cincinnati Medical Center, P.O. Box 0663, 250 Health Professions Building, Cincinnati, OH 45267-0663. e-mail 〈lorenzi{at}uc.edu〉
- Received 1 November 1999
- Accepted 18 November 1999
Abstract
As increasingly powerful informatics systems are designed, developed, and implemented, they inevitably affect larger, more heterogeneous groups of people and more organizational areas. In turn, the major challenges to system success are often more behavioral than technical. Successfully introducing such systems into complex health care organizations requires an effective blend of good technical and good organizational skills. People who have low psychological ownership in a system and who vigorously resist its implementation can bring a “technically best” system to its knees. However, effective leadership can sharply reduce the behavioral resistance to change—including to new technologies—to achieve a more rapid and productive introduction of informatics technology. This paper looks at four major areas—why information system failures occur, the core theories supporting change management, the practical applications of change management, and the change management efforts in informatics.
Footnotes
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This paper was the basis of a presentation by Dr. Lorenzi that was part of the Cornerstone on Managing Change, one of four Cornerstone sessions included in the program of the AMIA Annual Fall Symposium, Washington, DC, November 6-10, 1999.
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↵* Paraphrased from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in Slaughterhouse-five: “ ‘If only it weren't for the people, the goddamned people,’ said Finnerty, ‘always getting tangled up with the machinery. If it weren't for them, earth would be an engineer's paradise.’ ”3
