For those of you whom are interested in Health Informatics and the concept of a Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO), the chapter except A RHIO Struggling to Form: Will it Get Off the Ground? from the book Transforming Health Care Through Information: Case Studies is now available.

The chapter definitely covers the issues surrounding technology and how it can be used to help improve healthcare.  But what’s even more interesting is the fact the process, committees, and organizational logistics that is required in order to get this to work.   It’s not just about getting the document standards to talk to each other and the computer systems to actually communicate using the same standards. 

One of the real keys was understanding all of the logistics to get this all to work.  It’s about understanding the politics, stakeholders, trust, leadership, culture, project management, and change management.  It’s about how to setup the teams of doctors, nurses, administrators, and IT personnel to work together and to motivate them to get them to work.  It’s also about how to get them all to communicate. 

Technology can be used to facilitate the communication and simplify the logistics – or it can be used to make things harder.  I hope the book chapter will help you do the former.