Benefits Management in Complex eHealth efforts
Digitalization of the health sector, also termed eHealth efforts, involves considerable change and substantial investments.
Kirsti Askedal
PhD Candidate
The disputation will be held digitally, because of the Corona covid-19-situation. Spectators may follow the disputation digitally – link is available below.
Kirsti Askedal of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Agder has submitted her thesis entitled “Enhancing the Benefits Management Model for Complex eHealth Efforts” and will defend the thesis for the PhD-degree Thursday 12 November 2020.
She has followed the PhD-programme at the Faculty of Social Sciences with Specilisation in Information Systems.
The PhD-project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council, ICT- and the project Common telemedical solution in Agder (TELMA) (In Norwegian)
Summary of the thesis by Kirsti Askedal:
Benefits Management in Complex eHealth efforts
Digitalization of the health sector, also termed eHealth efforts, involves considerable change and substantial investments.
Complexity
The sector is thus dependent on structured processes and visible leadership to ensure successful outcomes. A stream of research, labelled benefits management, has focused on exactly this and provides the basis needed for understanding the ongoing development in the health sector.
However, digital innovation in the sector is increasingly done as collaborative efforts between 2 or more organizations.
This introduces additional complexity and existing frameworks for benefits management are inadequate to understand and manage this complexity.
Purpose
The purpose of this thesis has therefore been to explore and understand benefits management in complex eHealth efforts.
The following two research questions have been investigated:
1) What benefits are realized in complex eHealth efforts?
2) Why is it challenging to realize benefits in complex eHealth efforts?
Result
In summary, this study shows that
1) both positive and negative effects have been reported from complex eHealth efforts over several years, and
2) lack of mechanisms for learning and governance were identified as key challenges for benefits management in complex eHealth initiatives.
Contributions for development
This thesis offers several contributions to the benefits management literature and to practice.
The existing benefits management model is extended and enhanced to cater for both organizational and interorganizational eHealth efforts.
In addition, aspects of learning and governance are incorporated into the model to improve benefits management and increase benefits realization.
Further, a six-question checklist is proposed to stimulate for learning and to avoid repetition of flawed practices.
Disputation facts
The trial lecture and the public defence will take place online, via the Zoom conferencing app (link below)
Acting Dean, Head of department, Professor Carl Erik Moe, Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Agder, will chair the disputation.
Trial lecture at 10:00 hours
Public defense at 12:00 hours
Given topic for trial lecture: “Benefits and challenges of IT Governance at the project and program level”
Thesis Title: “Enhancing the Benefits Management Model for Complex eHealth Efforts”
Search for the thesis in AURA - Agder University Research Archive, a digital archive of scientific papers, theses and dissertations from the academic staff and students at the University of Agder.
The thesis is available here:
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2685552
The Candidate: Kirsti Askedal (1980, Kristiansand) Bachelors degree in Nursing, Agder Universioty College (now UiA) (2003). Masters degree in Information Technology with specialisation in Health Informatics, Aalborg University, Denmark (2010). Present position: Project manager in Bliksund AS.
Opponents:
First opponent: Reader, Head of Centre for Information Management Crispin Coombs, Loughborough University, UK
Second opponent: Professor Hilde Eide, Department of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of South-Eastern Norway
Associate Professor Polyxeni Vasilakopoulou, Department of Information Systems, University of Agder, is appointed as the administrator for the assessment commitee.
Supervisor were Professor Leif Skiftenes Flak, Department of Information Systems, University of Agder
What to do as an audience member:
The disputation is open to the public, but to follow the trial lecture and the public defence, which is transmitted via the Zoom conferencing app, you have to register as an audience member.
We ask audience members to join the virtual trial lecture at 09:50 at the earliest and the public defense at 11:50 at the earliest. After these times, you can leave and rejoin the meeting at any time. Further, we ask audience members to turn off their microphone and camera and keep them turned off throughout the event. You do this at the bottom left of the image when in Zoom. We recommend you use ‘Speaker view’. You select that at the top right corner of the video window when in Zoom.
Opponent ex auditorio:
The chair invites members of the public to pose questions ex auditorio in the introduction to the public defense, with deadlines. Questions can be submitted to the chair, Carl Erik Moe, at e-mail carl.e.moe@uia.no