title: Organizational readiness for telemedicine: implications for success and failure.
abstract: The use of telemedicine brings about change in health-care organizations and opens up new possibilities for service delivery. The organizational environment is often crucial in determining whether or not telemedicine applications will be successful. To examine the concept of 'organizational readiness for telemedicine' as a factor to explain why telemedicine initiatives succeed or fail, the results were used of interviews with key informants, conducted in two studies: the Alliance for Building Capacity project and the National Initiative for Telehealth guidelines project. The data indicate that organizational readiness for telemedicine is a multifaceted concept that is related to planning and the workplace environment. A greater understanding of the factors within organizational readiness could help to avoid costly implementation errors. 'Readiness' needs to be systematically assessed and is important for long-term success.
authors.affiliation: Health Telematics Unit, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. jennetts@ucalgary.ca
authors.forename: Penny
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jennett
authors.forename: Maryann
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yeo
authors.forename: Monica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pauls
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Graham
mesh_terms: D058016:Health Facility Administration; D006287:Health Planning Guidelines; D006290:Health Planning Technical Assistance; D006801:Humans; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017132:Workplace / Q000458:organization & administration