Exploring adaptive mirroring in healthcare IT architectures.

Abstract

Digital transformation is demanding for incumbent organizations such as healthcare, where legacy-based IT architectures challenge the establishment of effective digital services. We refer to this as the IT silo problem, where multiple non-consolidated IT systems are implemented to support expert practices. In this paper, we analyze this challenge using a mirroring lens. Our research question is, how can we create efficient digital services, utilizing the existing legacy systems in healthcare IT architectures? Our empirical evidence comes from a Norwegian case and contributes to the literature on IT architecture within Healthcare. First, we demonstrate how strict mirroring leading to sub-optimization and silofication is a major cause for the presence of IT silos. Second, we describe a process towards adaptive mirroring, and the resulting adaptive mirroring architecture. Adaptive mirroring is an architectural combinatory device that facilitates the design and use of efficient services, while also improving the flexibility of IT architectures.