Assessing the maturity and performance of the IT function in acute-care hospitals: a configurational view.

This study aims to characterises the maturity of IT management in hospitals, to identify the IT management configurations needed to achieve greater performance and to characterise the organisational and strategic IT contexts in which these configurations evolve. Drawing on survey data from 72 Canadian acute-care hospitals with the CIO as the main respondent, we used a configurational approach to assess the maturity of their IT functions. We classified participating hospitals in two distinct groups, each related to different levels of performance. Hospitals in the first group are characterised by a rather "immature" IT management model and presented low levels of IT performance. Hospitals in the second group showed more maturity in their IT management model and high levels of IT performance. Importantly, both the strategic influence of the CIO and the centrality of IT to the hospital's strategic goals were found to be significantly greater in the mature group.