E-Health and Risk Management

Brendan, I appreciate you inviting me to respond to some of your comments.

It seems that many e-Health projects have had difficulty in delivering effectively. The three largest problems usually are being over-budget, not meeting appropriate deadlines and not meeting needed requirements. I wholeheartedly believe, being a risk management practitioner and having seen the value of risk management, that it could be a powerful tool in reducing the likelihood of delivery challenges.

I think there are two main obstacles in terms of managing risk in e-Health. One is actually doing the risk management. The other is doing it well. To me, the second obstacle is the greater challenge.

Other sectors (financial, energy, technology, government) have seen the value of risk management. They have risk management programs in place. Their projects keenly include risk management as part of overall implementation. But they have run into critical barriers in ensuring that their risks are managed in meaningful way.

If the e-Health establishment really wants to look closely at effective management of risk, it should look at some of the lessons learned from other sectors. This could prevent us from going through the same growing pains that other sectors have gone through.