Research On Application Of TOC In HIS Implementation Project Management

The study tried to help improve the performance of Hospital Information System (HIS) implementation projects by integrating the theory of constraints (TOC) and project management body of knowledge into initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling. An appropriately directed and controlled project of HIS implementation is important for both the successful application of information system and the improvement of the hospital's performance.First, project management body of knowledge and management approaches in common use were introduced. Then, the basic idea, focusing steps, thinking processes, throughput accounting, and generic solutions of TOC were analyzed, and the critical chain project management in particular.Second, HIS, the product of the implementation project, was studied in the perspectives of organizational environment, objective, functions. The motivation, scope, objective, criteria of success, and critical success factors of HIS implementation project were analyzed.Based on the result of the research, constraints in different phases of HIS implementation projects were identified. In order to get holistic optimization of the project, the capability of constraints should be exploited and improved. Therefore, TOC was applied into project management.An implementation project of HIS subsystem was introduced as a successful case in order to show how to exploit and improve the capability of system constraint in HIS implementation projects with TOC, so that the efficiency of project management could be improved in practice.