As hospitals and health systems seek to dig out from particularly tough couple years for their bottom lines, the large majority are planning to boost spending on technology next year as they continue their efforts toward digital transformation.

WHY IT MATTERS
More than 88% of hospital chief information officers and other IT leaders plan to increase their investments in third-party technology in 2023-24, according to a new poll from IDC and sponsored by Redox.

The brief, "Buyer Mindsets: Health Technology Perspectives from Clinical and Clinical IT Leaders," surveyed more than 200 clinical and IT leaders at medium-to-large-sized health to gauge their technology-buying appetites.

Health systems in general continue to see digital transformation as their "most important organizational goal" for 2023-2024, according to the report.

They're looking to invest in tools that can help them boost efficiency and reduce waste, while simultaneously improving the quality of care delivery and boosting clinical outcomes.

Toward that goal, advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence/machine learning are among the top three most transformative areas of technology that these IT purchasers are eyeing, according to Redox. The other is 5G, with 28% of respondents citing investment in those networks as an imperative.

Still, "while providers are turning to third-party solutions to help transform their operations, they're also acutely aware of their infrastructure limitations," according to the report – which found 40% of clinical IT leaders citing integration and middleware as particularly challenging for their organizations.

They're concerned about this, with more than one in four saying their frontline clinicians "acutely feel the impact of fragmented data on their daily workflows and care outcomes."

Even as they continue to spend on advanced IT initiatives such as virtual care and remote patient monitoring, about 40% of poll respondents say data reliability and data availability are top of mind as they look to new investments.

THE LARGER TREND
Healthcare IT News has been interviewing CIOs about their longer-term investment priorities for the next few years in areas such as artificial intelligence, interoperability, telehealth and RPM, cybersecurity, EHR optimization, precision medicine, and emerging technologies.

HITN Managing Editor Bill Siwicki also spoke with Dr. Sunny Kumar, a partner at GSR Ventures, earlier this year about digital health investment trends for 2023.

ON THE RECORD
"Delivering health data that's complete, accurate, and standardized at the point of care makes it possible for providers to offer the personalized care that consumers want," said Luke Bonney, CEO of Redox, in a statement about the new IDC report. "But before that can happen, the data must be usable; clinicians, as users, must be able to customize their data experience, accessing only the data they want, when and where they need it."

He added: "Providers are looking for nimble vendors who can clinically validate their solutions and differentiate the way they care for patients. Ideally, the technology vendors they choose now will be able to easily exchange data outside their network, wherever their patients go for care."

CIO Connect, a HIMSS Professional Development program that aims to prepare aspiring health IT leaders, is accepting applications through June 2024. Learn more.

Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.