‘Without the right vision, attitudes and research base, eHealth initiatives in hospitals can end up being extraordinarily expensive mistakes’

The wide-ranging, emergent, and uncertain nature of eHealth impacts implies that policy-makers and hospital administrators are unlikely to succeed with eHealth initiatives if they assume that the sole aim is to achieve pre-conceived organisational goals and metrics. Rather, they should consider eHealth implementations to be an opportunity to fundamentally rethink what it means to be a high value hospital and redefine the metrics used to assess their performance. This approach will motivate all stakeholders to leverage new opportunities as they emerge and allow governments to reap the transformational benefits that these technologies have the potential to confer on patient care.