Aspen Publications, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 1995. The whole is always greater than the sum of the parts, and all systems share some underlying structure and exhibit some common behavioral patterns. The following statements about systems are true. A health care system will be used an example for each point.
Objects are part of a system and each object has attributes.
There are concrete systems where at least two objects are tangible. There are abstract systems where the objects are concepts. For all practical purposes, HMIS are concrete systems. A system is a unified or integral reality in its own right. Each element, or part of a system, connects to every other element, or part of a system, directly or indirectly.