Article
Six realities facing CIOs—and a complimentary report on navigating them
As healthcare becomes increasingly digitized, hospital CIOs must perform a balancing act, meeting the IT needs of the organization today while also anticipating how healthcare and technology will evolve. Understanding the present and rising challenges is crucial to making positive, sustainable changes.
To that end, here is my take on six key realities facing healthcare provider CIOs, as identified in Gartner® research Altera Digital Health is thrilled to offer our clients and partners:
1. Changing consumer expectations
Healthcare consumers are looking for the same levels of convenience, flexibility and personalization they have become accustomed to in industries like banking and retail. They are demanding ways to easily view their health data and access care with a few clicks on their mobile devices. In fact, one survey found that 44% of consumers would willingly share their personal and health data with healthcare organizations.
2. New ecosystem dynamics
Driving positive health outcomes, reducing costs and effectively utilizing resources are some of the top benefits of improved interoperability. And according to ASTP/ONC, 70% of hospitals can engage in interoperable exchange (defined as sending, finding, receiving and integrating data.) However, to bring this to the next level, organizations must also prioritize the delivery of organized, actionable insights to providers and other team members.
3. Cost optimization and business model disruption
While hospitals are working with tight margins, non-traditional new market entrants are seeking to chip away at their market share. This compounds the pressure for CIOs to innovate and drive consumer loyalty while also managing costs. Tech-enabled strategies include providing easy options for patient bill pay and implementation of systems that enable better understanding and management of denied claims.
4. Monolithic IT barrier to innovation
Other industries have shown that closed, one-size-fits-all technologies are not effective, and that holds true in healthcare, as well. Legacy electronic health record (EHR) systems are locking in organizations, making it difficult to integrate solutions with new capabilities their EHR does not offer. Better integration with disruptive technologies would also reduce the stronghold incumbent EHRs have on the market and ultimately drive the price of software down.
5. High EHR total cost of ownership and poor clinician experience
EHRs are one of the largest IT investments healthcare organizations make, but they do not consistently enable better, more efficient healthcare decision-making and delivery. Poor EHR design and user experiences, slow software upgrades and dependencies on third party software like Citrix continue to create unnecessary burdens and stress for providers. One survey by KLAS found that about one-third of nurses experiencing burnout cite their EHR as a contributing factor.
6. Difficulties in harnessing the power of AI, data and analytics
From the exam room to the revenue cycle office, hospital leaders want solutions that make sense of vast volumes of data or help physicians make critical decisions about patients in real time. To make this reality, organizations need to break down application siloes, develop a strong data warehouse, improve data liquidity and use modern applications to harness the power of AI and big data.
The EHR evolution
Gartner has created a report that dives into these challenges and explains how a digital health platform approach to health IT can address them. To download your complimentary copy of the Gartner Innovation Insight: Digital Health Platforms Accelerate Transformation, click here.