Healthcare providers are racing to update their IT infrastructure to meet a wide range of patient preferences spanning from traditional in-person care to digital self-service solutions. These organizations’ leaders aim to adopt a “patient-first, data-anywhere” approach which prioritizes patients’ needs and experiences while enabling seamless access to their medical information from almost any healthcare setting.

That vision, however, may conflict with available resources. Healthcare organizations, particularly smaller ones, are grappling with budget and bandwidth constraints as they seek to update their IT systems.

AI adoption on the horizon

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a major driver for modernization efforts. More than three in five organizations are planning to leverage AI technologies within the next three years, according to a recent HIMSS Market Insights study on IT infrastructure modernization.¹ This includes generative AI, predictive analytics and workflow automations.

Kurt Telep, Healthcare Field Chief Technology Officer for cloud provider Nutanix, emphasized the importance of preparing IT networks for AI’s data-intensive demands. “To maximize the value of AI investments, it’s imperative to have IT infrastructure that can accommodate heavy data ingestion so you can get actionable insights more quickly,” he said.

The adoption curve for AI technologies is steep. While only 11% of surveyed organizations currently use AI-delivered computer vision algorithms, 69% plan to adopt this technology within the next five years. This signals a potential revolution in medical imaging and diagnostics.

Hurdles on the path to modernization

Despite this optimism, the road to IT modernization is fraught with obstacles. More than three in four leaders (76%) in the HIMSS Market Insights study cite rising costs of IT infrastructure as a major barrier.

On average, healthcare decision-makers identified six significant hurdles, with IT security and resiliency (61%) and investment prioritization (59%) topping the list, according to the survey. Data management presents another critical challenge, particularly for executive leaders. The sheer volume of patient data, coupled with the need for seamless sharing across various care settings, is pushing many organizations to their limits.

Telep noted that even small practices need long-term data storage and high accessibility of data to scale their businesses, and that reliance on older solutions is getting expensive. “The cost of retaining traditional IT infrastructure continues to go up because of the higher maintenance associated with legacy technologies,” he said.

Healthcare IT vendors can play a key role in organizations’ ability to maximize their investments and ensure solutions work as intended, according to Telep. That includes closer collaboration among vendors, particularly those embedding AI into products and services. “When vendors work together, it leads to much, much better outcomes,” he said.

Healthcare leaders’ push to modernize IT infrastructure is not just about keeping up with the times; it's also about improving patient outcomes through reshaping the future of care delivery. By adopting technologies that facilitate a patient-centric approach and seamless data sharing across different environments, healthcare organizations can continue to meet a variety of care preferences and remain preferred providers.

Resource

1. HIMSS Market Insights. 2024. IT Infrastructure Modernization. This research was conducted among 54 qualified executives and IT/Technology leaders (managers and above) in healthcare in the United States. Dell was not identified as a sponsor of the research.

Read the Nutanix State of Enterprise AI Report here.