One of the challenges I’ve seen with the Enterprise Architecture approach is how to keep it a manageable process. The health sector is a large and complex enterprise, and trying to develop a comprehensive architecture for every business processes is a daunting prospect. By using EA at the very highest levels to define (in very simplistic terms) the essential business processes and how they interrelate is a start, then one can use an EA approach to delve more deeply into discrete building blocks or domains of the health system. I’ve used EA strictly for developing architecture and requirements for supply chain MIS, and I know others have used the same approach for human resource MIS and hospital management systems. This all happen before there was a comprehensive EA defined, and the learning on these subsystems has been beneficial in getting stakeholders on board to tackle the need for higher level EA definition to guide interoperability between existing and proposed subsystems.
Routine Health Information Network (RHINO)
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