Exploring Swedish Hospitals’ Transition towards becoming more Data-Driven : A Qualitative Case Study of Two Swedish Hospitals

• Main Authors: Carlson, Olof, Thunmarker, Viktor, Zetterberg, Mikael
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen 2012
• Subjects: BI; BI to the masses; business analytics; decision making; data-driven; data quality; health care; productivity
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-176517

The Swedish health care sector must improve productivity in order to deal with anincreased demand from an aging population with limited resources. In the traditiondriven health care sector, transitioning towards becoming more data-driven has beenidentified as a potential solution. This explorative qualitative case study explores howindividual employees perceive this development at two Swedish hospitals. The resultscomplement theory by presenting propositions that explains drivers and barriers ofthe transition, but also the outcomes of it as perceived by the employees. The studyprimarily concludes that (1) a lack of trust in data and a tradition to base decisions ongut feelings in conjunction with low IT competence make hospital culture a majorobstacle for the transition, and that (2) it is important to understand the employees’perceived outcomes of becoming data-driven as it affects their support of thetransition. The results provide a platform for future research to build on and arevaluable for practitioners as they seek to utilize the drivers and mitigate the barriers.