Process Redesign at Partners Healthcare

Case Objectives and Use

Business leaders need to know how to lead organizational change. This imperative drives the need for MBA students to know how to diagnose, plan for and implement both incremental and transformational change. This Partners HealthCare case is used as an example of incremental change. While this case is intended for a graduate level course on leading change, the case could also be used in an operations, technology, or health care management course.There are four primary learning objectives for this case. The first is to demonstrate how an information technology leader in the health care industry diagnoses the need to improve her IS area. Secondly, the case illustrates how an IT leader plans for change in her organization. The third objective is to analyze how an organization’s overall structure and culture impact the implementation of IT systems. And lastly, the case allows students to decide when and how to adjust and adapt the original plans for IT change.

Case Synopsis

In 2001 Mary Finlay, Deputy Chief Information Officer (CIO), Partners HealthCare System, Inc. Boston MA, realized that she could not say how many or what kind of information technology (IT) projects were in process within the nine-hospital system. Concurrently IT staff across the system was recognizing that they had no way to say “no” to projects, nor did they have consistent methods to calibrate man hours and costs of projects. To transition from the decentralized to a standardized project tracking system, Finlay formed teams to study the problems and offer solutions. The teams recommended the adoption of PlanView, a software platform that tracked projects and served as a project management tool. With its installation, Finlay immediately heard complaints about the new tool. Over a couple of years, it did, however, provide her with needed data. However, the “noise” about PlanView still sounded throughout the IS organization. Finlay considered the options and called a...