SOA governance in healthcare: Beyond early ideas to a structured framework

This chapter depicts the gradual development of a conceptual SOA Governance Framework tailored for healthcare organisations. The proposed framework presented herein is based on the authors' previous research and includes nine SOA Governance elements that need to be considered during the SOA process. The identification and conceptualisation of the elements were grounded in the normative literature and further developed to include healthcare specific aspects. This comes as a method to overcome the limitations identified in normative literature and enhance the elements' conceptualisation. Besides, the authors propose a unique design combining nine elements of SOA Governance with SOA Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and Healthcare Information Systems (HIS) challenges. This proposal aims to pinpoint attributes and guidelines for each element, required to successfully govern SOA and tackle longstanding HIS challenges. The framework is intended to be used as a decision supporting tool for SOA Governance in a healthcare setting.