Achieving Efficiency and Effectiveness through Systems
Efficiency
More output with the same input
To illustrate how organizations can be more efficient by introducing an information system, we provide an example of a hospital using an information system to manage patient information. Without a system to manage patients' personal and historical information, a doctor would need to ask a patient the same questions about allergies, family history, and the like each time they visit the hospital - even if the patient has been to the same hospital and visited the same doctor a number of times before. As a result, the doctor's time is wasted in asking redundant questions each time the patient visits.
The most immediate solution to this information management problem is to create and maintain a folder for the patient containing their medical history, which is then used by any doctor treating the same patient in the future. The doctor retrieves the patient's historical information from the folder and saves time asking the same questions again.
With this simple information system, a doctor can serve more patients (more output) within the same amount of time (same input). An even higher degree of efficiency can be achieved by using a computerized information system. That is, doctors enter the patients' clinical results into a computerized database instead of writing on a piece of paper and filing the paper in a folder. When a patient returns to the hospital in the future, a doctor can obtain the patient's information at the click of a mouse. As a result, doctors can serve even more patients, since they do not need to search through all the patients' folders in order to find the specific information needed.