Posted by Jeff Papows on Fri, Mar 26, 2010 @ 11:16 AM
Whether you’re for or against healthcare reform, you have to admit it’s going to cause major shifts that will directly impact IT. Of course, this doesn’t come as a surprise to anybody who’s even remotely involved in managing the infrastructure of a healthcare or health-related organization.
For years, the healthcare industry has been dealing with a somewhat late arrival to IT adoption with regard to building and sustaining infrastructures. And this certainly isn't a knock on the healthcare industry as a whole. It's just that in order to get a full view of all activities in a healthcare organization requires a complex IT infrastructure that needs to support and connect all of the various departments and people in the patient life cycle.
For example, a patient who enters the emergency room for a short visit can easily interact with admissions, the HMO, x-rays, doctors, nurses, and the pharmacist before the information is aggregated and linked to billing and insurance. Now multiply this complexity by the fact that the average emergency room in the United States sees 82 patients per day.
Now when you add in new government regulations -- like we saw with HIPAA a few years ago -- the massive IT undertaking required to adhere to the new healthcare reform can't be understated.
Even for those organizations like Kaiser Permanente and Independence Blue Cross that have built sound IT infrastructures that are based on a proactive approach to IT governance, the new regulations are going to require significant investments of time from both the business and IT groups.
On the upside, however, is the opportunity for the healthcare industry to leapfrog other industries and show how to simplify these complex back-end systems so that the end user -- in this case, the patients -- do not have their care interrupted due to shoddy IT practices.
Healthcare is certainly one area where preventative measures, including IT governance, can go a long way, especially as new government mandates kick in.
Posted by Jeff Papows on Mon, Jan 18, 2010 @ 03:47 PM
By now, I assume that everybody in the industry is aware of Google potentially ceasing operations in China. Given the cyber attacks on gmail accounts that were supposedly initiated by the Chinese government, it's clear that this story will continue to play out over the next several months. We've already heard from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton stating that the issue has "raised very serious concerns" along with other daily reports on the topic.
While there are many different ways to view this evolving story, the piece that I find most troubling is today's news that indicates that Google insiders may have aided the Chinese government in hacking the gmail accounts of human rights activists.
The tech crowd is pointing to vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and there is a solid argument about the ability to use IE to hack into the gmail accounts. However, blaming Microsoft technology for the security compromises is about as productive as blaming the gasoline after the arsonist has set the fire.The issue that this whole Google China incident raises in my mind is the role of the government in the Internet and where IT governance intersects the two.
Now I don't expect nor do I want any government to step in and start overseeing the usage of the Internet and search engine results. Yet with the latest news that the cyber attacks are being traced back to insiders, it calls into question the amount of IT governance that was in place.
Could governance have prevented the attacks? No, as that's a far-fetched and unrealistic claim. However, with the right amount of governance in place, rogue applications and activities may not have been allowed to infiltrate the infrastructure. In this instance, it may have been able to alert Google China's managers to potentially compromising behavior before it put the entire operation at risk including the 700 employees in the country.
If Google does cease operations in China, the implications will be pretty far reaching given the search engine giant's presence in the country and its recent expansion into music and the mobile device market. It would be a shame for the company to lose the momentum it's been building in China over since 2005 yet it would be an even bigger shame if it was forced to compromise it's "Do No Evil" mission statement.
I'm going to keep watching this story, as there's likely to be more that unfolds. Meanwhile, I can't help but wonder how much of a difference governance would have been able to make in minimizing the impact of the situation.
Posted by Jeff Papows on Wed, Oct 21, 2009 @ 08:27 AM
That headline is not a joke. CNNMoney just published a list of the top 10 least stressful jobs according to findings from PayScale.com and believe it or not, software developer ranked at number four with software architect coming in at number eight.
In my opinion, it appears that the reasoning has more to do with the job descriptions as opposed to the actual day-to-day assignments.
For example, software developers are considered to be in a low stress job because they 'get to work on a flexible schedule and set their own timelines.'
For software architects, a day in the office is like a walk in the park because 'their forte is designing software for cool new products and computers, or creating new versions of software for new computer operating systems.'
I'm sure that thorough research was done for the rankings and for the most part, the job descriptions are accurate. However, I have to wonder if the majority of architects and developers would agree with the findings.
Of course, my exposure to these audiences is a bit skewed when you consider that more often than not they're exploring governance after a project has gone awry.
With this in mind, following is my top five list citing the factors that could tip these rankings from least stressful to most stressful.
1. Overseas development team doesn't follow policies.
2. Security breach in the cloud.
3. Corporate merger fails to integrate different IT systems.
4. Computer glitch makes front-page news.
5. Redundant development efforts delay product ship date.
These issues are actually quite common and all-too-familiar to IT architects and developers.
I'd like to think that the rankings are based on companies that already have governance in place - which, of course, leads to less stressful jobs.
Got any additions to the list or thoughts on the CNNMoney ranking of the top 10 least stressful jobs? I'd especially like to hear from you if you're a software architect or developer.
Drop me a line at jeff@weblayers.com or post your comments below.