The effect of change on the National Health Service general managers' information needs.

The research enquiry using a sample of 20 NHS organisations with similar revenue and population characteristic profiles sets out to identify the information needs of the NHS General Managers and in doing so highlight the information that they need to meet their organisations' key success factors. The research identifies through the enquiry process the General Managers' information needs and describes the categories of those needs, the pressures and influences of the General Managers' working environment on those needs and the links to the influences that have been reflected in their information needs. In particular the external influence of the Department of Health and the business environment has not only changed the General Managers' information needs but affected the balance of power between the stakeholders, which in turn has affected those information needs. These organisational and environmental changes, health policies, stakeholder demands, and changes in the balance of power between the stakeholders has resulted in a change in the way in which the General Managers work with information, which has in turn increased the need for more accurate, timely and complex information.The research analyses the General Managers' understanding of their roles in the General Manager/patient/doctor relationship and analyses the potential areas of conflict arising when the patients' interests clash with the market-led (business) interests of the healthcare organisations and the diverse needs of the Provider, Purchaser and Regional Executive General Managers. These problems together with the effects of organisational resistance, organisational culture clash and system requirements and its effect on the information needs of the General Managers were examined for associated links with the difficulties that the General Managers experience in defining their information requirements.The research provides an understanding of the links between a market-led healthcare environment, the General Managers' information needs, and their attitude towards information as well as an understanding as to whether the patient, a key stakeholder, has benefited in the healthcare empowerment stakes as a result of the re-delineation of the General Managers' information needs and the impact upon their decision making.The information needs identified as a result of the research have shown them to have become business orientated with financial targets as a key measure and clinical performance (outcomes) increasingly being seen as the other key factor as an indication of success for the organisation.The hypothesis (Null Hypothesis) of the research asserts that it is not possible to link a market-led healthcare environment, the General Managers' information needs, their attitudes and behaviour towards information, and patient empowerment in such a way as to develop a model of information needs that is common across the Purchaser, Provider and the NHS Executive organisations. However, the research has developed as a first step, a series of outline models of information needs that will lead to a more complex and common model of information needs across the General Managers' organisational groups that will allow, when assessed against key success factors, a judgmental view of the ability of both the General Managers and their organisations to deliver their aims and objectives.