The hospital began its changeover more than 3 years ago and hired consultants, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to oversee the project. "Being a non-profit organisation rather than a commercial organisation, the hospital was less aware of the full effects of EMU [European Monetary Union] and the introduction of the euro", says PWC in an interim report (www.pwcglobal. com/gx/eng/ins-sol/specint / new europe/ emu/ pwc_hospital.pdf). Another challenge arose when drawing up plans to switch the hospital's accounting software-a process that usually involves shutting down the IT systems. "The hospital made it clear that it was unable to sustain a long shut-down of their systems, as it was a 24-h operating entity...

Goodbye Franc, Mark, Guilder, Escudo

10.1016/S0140-6736(01)07245-2