I read the piece in New Yorker titled “Why Doctors Hate Their Computers?” and enjoyed it very much. It is by Atul Gawande who is a surgeon and an author. It describes the issues we all face every day – technology is changing fast and we want our respective communities to adopt them, but it is a monumental challenge. I am of course simplifying it, but thats the crux of it. There is one thing in the article that stuck with me – “Mutation and Selection”.

Basically the author compares how the medical profession operated under a very different paradigm early on, where, every physician basically operated independently that suited their particular modes of operation. This is mutation part. Electronic medical record (EMR) systems tried to bring standardization, better sharing of information amongst the physicians and most importantly, gave access to information to the patients readily. This is the selection part. Obviously this is not a trivial adjustment for those who operated independently and the fact the EMR systems, which are in their infancy, are not optimal. At least not yet.

Higher Ed institutions face exactly the same issues. The whole issue of centralization of systems is the “selection” part and the proliferation of multiple systems (Best of Breed) is the mutation part. What is the right balance between the two is so complex and dependent on the institution. But, the article describes how a neurosurgeon and his team is trying to “mutate” the “selection” system (EMR) so that their needs can be accommodated. This is what we would call customization in the old ERP systems, which turned out to be a terrible idea for a variety of reasons. However, in the more modern systems, such as Workday or Salesforce, accommodations to mutations are much simpler to manage through “configurations” and “business processes”. This would be a “controlled mutation” of sorts.

But, whats the problem with supporting best of breed?

(more…)