Stories that Move Mountains: Storytelling and Visual Design for Persuasive Presentations

Example 2: City University Hospital

City University Hospital is one of the top five hospitals in the country. It's a leading research center and training hospital that serves as the major area hospital with more than half a million patients each year. This is a great place to work, where I can be very proud of what we do. My name is Tom. I lead the IT group that provides systems to run everything from patient information to room scheduling.

The hospital trustees recently approved a three-year expansion and transformation plan. This will include a new critical care building at the side of the existing Accident and Emergency unit. Capable of handling 70,000 patient visits per year, this facility will lead the way in adopting new technology and processes to improve patient care.

Unfortunately the IT systems have not had the coordination or investment over the past five years to support this plan. I joined the hospital team when the management board decided to bring IT services back under their control, after a long period of being run by an outside company.

The transformation plan is the first big chance my new team has to make a difference and show how IT really should work. It is great to have this chance, but at the same time, we have to convince a lot of people that we can do this.

Patient data is currently in a mix of systems and on paper. We have islands of information across the hospital and complex processes that have evolved over years to get around the problems this ...