Have you ever wondered why your hospital library is forced to buy a certain type of desktop, unable to load various software programs that would make library applications work more efficiently? Take a look at this recent post from Life as a Healthcare CIO, by John D. Halamka where he talks about the differences in supporting the hospital's IT needs vs. the university's IT needs. In hospitals, a lot of the decisions are made because of HIPPA and money.

I understand the need to have like systems, platforms and software. I understand the need for efficiency. Unfortunately as many librarians report, this one size fits all approach does not always work effectively. Some of these policies prevent clinicians, librarians, nurses, etc. from doing their jobs. Take for example the policy that employees are not allowed to load programs onto their desktop computers. Good in theory but when certain programs (like the latest version of Flash or Java) are necessary for the performance of your department dependent applications, it becomes frustrating when you are unable to load it and must wait for a decision from the IT department as to whether they will be allowed to install it on your computer. Or take for example the doctor who wants to look up the latest article on a certain procedure that was just published. He logs onto the clinical workstation on the floor but soon discovers he is prohibited from going out to the Internet to get the article due to security reasons.

I feel hospital IT departments lack an adequate method to proactively address these situations where the round peg does not fit into the square hole. Libraries are not the only departments that have certain software and hardware needs that may be slightly different from the hospital norm. For example great strides in imaging and storage capacity has made the radiology department's software and hardware needs different from the hospital. Perhaps libraries are the smallest, quietest, and "least profitable" of the departments in the minds of IT and management to qualify to be handled as a unique case. If that’s so then we need to do a better job of education.

Yet all of the education in the world will not help if the IT department strictly adheres to its dogma and continues to force the round pegs into the square holes. If that is the case, the IT guy will not only be thought of the guy that says no, but also as a barrier to the operation of your department.