Performance effects related to the sequence of integration of healthcare technologies

There is a natural order to most events in life: Everything from learning to read to DNA sequences in molecular biology follows some predetermined, structured methodology that has been refined to yield improved results. Likewise, it would seem that firms could benefit by adopting and implementing technologies in some logical way so as to increase their overall performance. In this study of 555 hospitals, we investigate the order in which medical technologies are transformed into information technologies through a process of converting them from stand-alone technologies to interoperable, integrated information systems and whether certain configurations of sequences of integration yield additional value. We find that sequence does matter and that hospitals that integrated foundational technologies first-which in this case are known to be more complex-tend to perform better. Theoretical and practical implications of this finding and others are discussed.