Abstract—The case study presents the progression of a project management of Al-Shifa, a healthcare information system in Oman. The case study describes the evolution of the implementation of a healthcare information system tailored to meet the needs of the healthcare units under the supervision of the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Oman. A focus group methodology was used for collecting the relevant information from the main project's stakeholders. In addition reports about the project made available for the researchers. The case analysis is made based on the Project Management approach developed by the Project Management Institute (PMI). The main finding that there was no formal project management approach adopted by the MOH for the development and implementation of the herewith mentioned healthcare information system project. Furthermore, the project had suffered a scope creep in terms of features, cost and time-schedule. The recommendations of the authors, for the rescue of the project from its current dilemma, consist of technological, administrative and human resources development actions. Keywords—Al-Shifa, Information system, Healthcare, Oman, Project Management. I.INTRODUCTION healthcare information system (HIS) can be defined as a comprehensive integrated information system designed to manage the operations of a hospital or a network of healthcare units, such as medical, administrative, financial, legal and the corresponding services processing. The implementation of such a sophisticated system is usually costly in terms of resources and time. The HIS systems require, due to their critical role and the sensitivity of information they handle, fast, secure, reliable, data integrity, and a very limited down time locally and over all the network of units interconnected by the system and exchanging data instantaneously in a way to make them fully integrated. HIS management is meant to improve the quality of hospital administration and patient healthcare and reducing the cost of delivering these services to their customers, in addition of being a patients and diseases data warehouse where it can be utilized for statistical and decision making by researchers and administrators. This study analyses the process of the gradual implementation of a healthcare system developed by the Ministry of Health in Oman toward a national unified Khamis Al-Gharbi is Assistant Dean with the Information Systems Department, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman (e-mail:algharbi@squ.edu.om). Said M. Gattoufi is with the College of Economics and Political Science, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman (e-mail: algattoufi@gmail.com). Ali H. Al-Badi is the HOD of the Information Systems Department, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman (email: aalbadi@squ.edu.om). Ali Al-Hashmi is with the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Oman (e- mail: hashmi@squ.edu.om). healthcare system management in the country. II.INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN HEALTHCARE: A LITERATURE SURVEY Healthcare systems were among the early adopter of ICT in general and particularly MIS. The claimed success encouraged decision makers and application developers to go even further in suggesting more advanced approaches to handle the healthcare activities benefiting from the spectacular developments in ICT. The international Telecommunications Union already published guidance and principles for e-Health in developing countries [1]. The Social, ethical and legal barriers to E-health were discussed in [2]. Many countries are developing their national-wide interconnected healthcare units network and Oman is planning for its national healthcare centralized information system, an e-health depository, serving different parts involved in the healthcare affairs in the country. The existing literature is echoing this success which is registered mainly in developed countries. The existing literature underlines the main elements contributing to the debatable successes in implementing healthcare information systems. Recognizing that the realization of Health Information Systems (HIS) requires rigorous evaluation that addresses technology, human and organization issues, Yusof et al. [3] provides a framework for such an evaluation method for different of HIS. Their main findings show that having the right user attitude and skills together with good leadership, IT-friendly environment and good communication can have positive influence on the system adoption and the success of its implementation. However, though this adoption registered some success in reducing the time for accessing the files and organizing the healthcare activities in healthcare units in many countries helping in eradicating many diseases, there is still a debate and doubt about this success in developing countries mainly due to the cost and the lack of adequate infrastructure. The successes or failures are themselves debatable since their definition varies in the literature. Berg [4] discusses the meanings of success and failure in HIS implementation and identifies the success factors as well as the failure factors of such an implementation, presenting alternative insights illustrated with concrete examples. Oak [5] claims that, at the present, the infrastructure of health information remain inadequate to meet the increasing demand of rising population. Poverty and technological implementations are major barriers in the lesser-developed countries. Healthcare can be transformed and health status of population improved by eliminating barriers and Khamis Al-Gharbi, Said M. Gattoufi, Ali H. Al-Badi, Ali Al-Hashmi A Case Study of Al-Shifa: A Healthcare Information System in Oman A World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Vol:8, No:8, 2014 2443 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 8(8) 2014 scholar.waset.org/1307-6892/9998985 International Science Index, Humanities and Social Sciences Vol:8, No:8, 2014 waset.org/Publication/9998985