Stars Air Ambulance

This particular case demonstrates the strategic importance of IT management in the life of an organization. We are shown that in order for the IT department to be most successful, there must be a proactive approach so that the most possible value is being added to the organization. We are shown how the newly appointed CIO must first gain control of the IT department in order to fully support the vision of STARS, which is "saving lives through partnership, innovation, and leadership."

The case studies an organization called the Shock-Trauma-Air-Rescue-Society, a.k.a. STARS Air Ambulance, which is a business that deals in saving peoples lives. This organization is based out of Calgary, Canada, and was created in order to provide a fast, reliable, safe, and specialized medical emergency transport system via helicopter, for the critically ill and injured patients within the province of Alberta. The organization has grown over the years and now operates in three cities: Calgary, Edmonton, and Grande Prairie so that they can better service the entire province. The team at STARS is on call 24 hours a day seven days a week are constantly waiting for the next emergency call so that they can dispatch the helicopters and air medical crew (AMC). STARS and its team of highly trained professionals, which consists of approximately 250 full- and part-time staff plus hundreds of dedicated volunteers, must work together to operate a highly technical communication system, which they call the Emergency Link Center (ELC). The ELC is located in Calgary, this technical communication system is one that links together the hospitals, the ambulances and EMT services, emergency-physicians, police officers, helicopter pilots, and firefighters/rescue teams, all which are vital elements in the "chain of survival".

The IT issue that we are presented with comes into play when Sharaz Khan is appointed the new Chief Information Officer (CIO) at STARS. Upon receiving the job Khan expects, to start working on a stable Information Systems (IS) operation. However shortly after starting his new position as CIO, Khan discovers that there are various problems with the existing information technology (IT) and its operations, it becomes quite evident that the IT and IS operations are in dire need of work, repair, and organization. The highly decentralized IT department was the result of an absence of interest/presence in IT at the executive level which, began from the company's inception thus resulting in an extremely disorganized and decentralized IS/IT department in turn creating a highly distributed IS budget that is impossible to calculate. The main problems that Khan observed included: an IT department that was very poorly organized, he observed excessive and/or unneeded use of consultants (for effortless jobs, which resulted in higher than needed costs), the project management was extremely insufficient and disorganized, throughout the organization