IT-Based Revenue Cycle Management: An Action Research into Relational Coordination

Many US hospitals are finding it extremely challenging to maintain their financial health as they are operating with consistently thinning margins. Administrative inefficiencies in Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) diminish cash flow, reducing crucial capital investments urgently needed to improve health outcomes. Whereas IS research increasingly focuses on the promises and challenges of clinical IT, few studies have explored the role of IT in addressing the information sharing and coordination challenges related to RCM in hospitals. Motivated by this gap, we adopt relational coordination theory to analyze three successful IT-driven interventions into a hospital's RCM. Our action research provides insights into how IT can help improve hospitals' financial viability and it demonstrates how relational coordination theory can help understand IT-enabled process innovations. The findings are important to both practitioners and scholars interested in exploring how the nexus of work relationships and technology can improve organizational outcomes.