Two days of discussion about the influence of technology on healthcare have produced at least one hard truth: Having the latest and best toys doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be successful.

The Institute for Health Technology Transformation’s Spring Summit, held May 12 and 13 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., brought together more than 200 healthcare officials to discuss issues ranging from security to vendor management to federal incentives. Some familiar themes emerged: the rise in patient-centered healthcare and telemedicine, the decline of the small practice and the gulf in communication between independent physicians and hospital networks.

At the end of the summit, as one final panel gathered to discuss meaningful use, Rick Moore, chief information officer for the National Committee for Quality Assurance, seemed to sum up the feelings of the participants in saying technology can be an enabler – or a barrier. Healthcare providers have to know how to use electronic medical records and practice management systems in order to get the best clinical and financial results, he said, and those results are going to be used the basis to judge success.

Swati Abbott, president of MEDai, which deals in business analytics for the healthcare industry, said providers have to make sure they’re adopting technology for the right reasons. Are vendors offering real solutions, she asked, or just another product?

Earlier that day, Rich Hastings, CEO of the Kansas City-based St. Luke’s Health System, which encompasses 11 hospitals, 1,800 physicians and some 14,000 employees, described how his system’s own health information exchange has become a core business, rather than a support service. The use of IT, ranging from online scheduling to order sets to medication administration, produces clinical and financial results, he said, that can be measured and held up as standards of care.

“Transparency is how people are going to judge us,” he said.

In another session, Lisa K. Rawlins, executive director of the South Florida Regional Extension Center, explained how the newly-formed REC is using $8.2 million in federal funding to create a resource for primary care physicians looking to implement electronic medical records. She pointed out that federal incentives and meaningful use guidelines are beginning to tame the jungle of EMR vendors, but selecting and installing an EMR doesn’t automatically create success.

“Project and change management is necessary,” she said.

That theme was taken up by John Lovelock, vice president of research for Gartner, who said providers dealing with multiple vendors should establish a strategic vendor management program. At a time when IT spending is still below the levels seen in 2008 and the vendor landscape is “capricious,” he said, providers need to closely manage their vendor relationships. That means working with them to analyze and set goals, creating scorecards of their performance and even dropping them if the results aren’t good or the fit isn’t right.

“Don’t make strategic vendor management about getting a better price,” he cautioned. “That’s contract management. Keep it there.”

The key, said Lovelock, is collaboration – a theme repeated throughout the two-day conference.

During the final panel session on meaningful use, the NCQA’s Moore referenced statistics that indicate a 20 percent decrease in small, privately owned physician practices over the past five years – evidence, he said, of physicians who aren’t using technology to their advantage.

“Something’s not going to be done correctly just by throwing an EHR in there,” he said.