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In Reply: Drs Harrison and Young criticize the source of the estimate for IT project failures. This is understandable because most of what we hear about, and most publicly reported information including the research literature, tends to be biased in favor of successes.¹ In addition, when does a system "fail"—when it is rejected by users, when it does not perform as was promised, or when its implementation costs 3 times the budgeted figure? Good estimates are hard to find, and we opted for a conservative one. Other sources are comparable. Surveys of chief information officers conducted yearly since 1994 have suggested that only 15% to 30% of IT projects are completed successfully, on time, and within budget. About 30% are abandoned uncompleted, and the remainder have serious cost or time overruns (by a factor of 2-3) or are seriously deficient in their ultimate functionality.^2-3 A Computer-based Patient Record Institute study . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Robert L. Wears, MD, MS
wears@ufl.edu
Department of Emergency Medicine
University of Florida
Jacksonville

Marc Berg, MA, MD, PhD
Department of Social Medical Sciences
Institute of Health Policy and Management
Erasmus University
Rotterdam, the Netherlands