Adult learners understand a topic best by doing it. It gives them both new skills and confidence in their ability to carryout the recommended procedures. In this project, you will estimate the relative value of VistA for the Veterans Administration. In order to make sure that the project can be done in a short time interval, no data collection is necessary. All needed data will be provided by the instructor in response to your queries. Use the approach proposed in the course to calculate the business value of the Vista information system to the Veterans Administration.
In August 20, 2007 we asked the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide us two pieces of information under the Freedom of Information Act. We asked them for the budget of the Office of Information in the last decade (this office was recently organized and the FOIA officer had to estimate what the budget of the office would have been prior to the re-organization). We also asked for the number of patient records in VistA database. On October 16th 2007 they provided us with the following information:
Fiscal Year Budget of Office
of Information Number of
Records in VistA VHA Cost per Patient Index
2004 533,190,714 4,976,773
0.8%
2003 316,467,395 4,806,871 -4.6%
2002 245,998,730 4,545,559 -9.1%
2001 187,087,714 4,088,075 -7.3%
2000 171,353,392 3,673,612 -6.5%
1999 203,211,123 3,425,474 -8.6%
1998 199,997,062 3,273,020 -6.2%
Table 2: Investment in IT, Use of VistA and Cost per Patient Index
Calculate the correlations between (a) index on cost of care per patient, (b) number of records in VistA system and the budget of the office of information.
Provide scatter diagram showing the relationship between IT investment (budget of Office of Information) and cost of care (VHA cost per Patient Index)?
What came first, IT investment or changes in cost of care?
