An examination of information systems and technology maturity and it’s relationship to methods of contributing information to the information systems planning process in National Health Service acute trust hospitals

Abstract

As a result of the use of Nolan's six Stage model of IS and IT maturity in a number of consultancy studies in the early 1980s, managers felt they could maximise the contribution of the IS and IT portfolios to the achievement of business strategy by becoming more IS and IT mature. Despite the development of a further eight models since 1979, empirical tests exist only of the Nolan model and one other, McFarlan, McKenney and Pyburn's model ofIT assimilation. This research has sought further empirical evidence of IS and IT maturity in National Health Service (NHS) acute Trust hospitals. Survey method was used to collect data from over seventy top and middle managers representing four Trust hospitals. Statistical analysis of these data provided evidence that six of twenty-three maturity characteristics identified in existing models can currently be used to differentiate the maturity of NHS acute Trust hospitals. These six characteristics had been identified both in models which considered a range of IS and IT issues and in models which had concentrated on a single aspect of IS and IT management. This indicated that further insight is gained by combining these approaches when modelling IS and IT maturity. Managers also placed different emphasis on the use of specific methods of contributing information to the IS planning process in hospitals which exhibited greater IS and IT maturity than in hospitals which exhibited lesser IS and IT maturity. This indicates the existence ,of a further IS maturity characteristic, further evidence of which can now be sought in other industry sectors.