Health Informatics Services

Many communities have responded to the increasing pressures on IM&T services by exploring the potential of managing services on a larger scale. This approach can provide economies of scale, and greater flexibility in how resources are deployed. The typical rationale for this approach is that movement to a larger scale Health Informatics Service will help to minimise the extra investment needed in IM&T rather than an expectation of financial savings for the stakeholder organisations.

Establishing a whole community Health Informatics Service is a complex change process. Initially the process of evaluating the current service may not be clear: there will probably be many stakeholders who will start from different viewpoints; and there may not be an effective mechanism
for conducting the evaluation, and for making decisions.

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