Information Systems for Business and Beyond (2019)

A discussed in the text, DSSs are best applied to semi- structured decisions, in which most of the needed inputs are known but human experience and environmental factors also play a role. A good example for today is Isabel, a health care DSS. The creators of Isabel explain how it works: Isabel uses the information routinely captured during your workup, whether free text or structured data, and instantaneously provides a diagnosis checklist for review. The checklist contains a list of possible diagnoses with critical “Don’t Miss Diagnoses” flagged. When integrated into your Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system, Isabel can provide “one click” seamless diagnosis support with no additional data entry. 6 Investing in IT for Competitive Advantage In 2008, Brynjolfsson and McAfee published a study in the Harvard Business Review on the role of IT in competitive advantage, entitled “Investing in the IT That Makes a Competitive Difference.” Their study confirmed that IT can play a role in competitive advantage if deployed wisely. In their study, they drew three conclusions 7 : • First, the data show that IT has sharpened differences among companies instead of reducing them. This reflects the fact that while companies have always varied widely in their ability to select, adopt, and exploit innovations, technology has accelerated and amplified these differences.

• Second, good management matters. Highly qualified vendors, consultants, and IT departments might be Information Systems for Business and Beyond (2019) pg. 156

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