Benefits and barriers related to eai adoption: the case of a healthcare organisation

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technology has emerged to overcome integration problems at different levels such as process and data. Although, many public and private organisations have successfully implemented EAI solutions, the adoption of EAI in healthcare organisations is slow and problematic. The research that has been published in this area remains limited and has mainly focused on factors (e.g. benefits, barriers etc) that influence the decision making process for EAI adoption in healthcare. Notwithstanding, the implications of EAI have yet to be assessed, leaving scope for timeliness and novel research. The main contribution of this paper is the identification of the benefits and barriers associated with the EAI adoption in healthcare. In addition, this research has identified and mapped healthcare actors to these benefits and barriers. Therefore, it supports the decision making process as it results in more informed practices and thus speeds up EAI adoption in healthcare. This is of high importance as 23725 human lives are lost in UK every year due to the limitations of the non-integrated healthcare Information Technology (IT) infrastructures. The proposed approach is significant and novel as it (a) improves the realisation of EAI adoption benefits and barriers, (b) enhances the analysis of EAI adoption in healthcare by incorporating an actororiented approach and (c) facilitates healthcare organisations and decision-makers in realizing EAI adoption benefits and barriers. Thus, it significantly contributes to the body of knowledge and practice in this area. Thus, it provides sufficient support to the management and speeds up the adoption process.