Organizational management of telemedicine technology: conquering time and space boundaries in health care services

Advanced information technology and improved information infrastructures have made telemedicine an increasingly viable health care service delivery alternative, measured in clinical, technical, and economic terms. Most existing telemedicine programs operate in an investigational setting where filtering or elimination of real-world frictions makes their migration to clinical settings challenging. The ultimate success of telemedicine demands effective technology management which can be systematically analyzed and modified to improve decision making. This paper reports research that identified important decisions that need to be made at each technology-management phase, discusses plausible decision interdependency, and highlights additional management issues that arise when telemedicine involves multiple technologies or extends across organizational boundaries. The authors' analyses of decision interdependency and intertechnology relationships, together with their managerial implications, have contributed to advancing research and practice related to management of suites of complex technologies in organizations participating in the health care service supply chain. Their findings suggest that a paradigmatic shift is needed to surmount the boundaries that have compartmentalized decision making, technology management, and organizations.