EHRs, population health platforms top CIOs investment priorities, KPMG says
About 38 percent of CIOs plan to invest the majority of their capital investment in EHR system optimization over the next three to five years.
Electronic health records remain a challenge for medical practitioners, which is why chief information officers plan to invest heavily over the next three years to improve how they're used, according to a survey of College of Healthcare Information Management Executives members conducted by advisory firm KPMG.
The survey, which was conducted through January, found that about 38 percent of CIOs plan to invest the majority of their capital investment in EHR system optimization over the next three to five years. Twenty-one percent plan on investing the bulk of their capital in accountable care and population health technology, while 16 percent said consumer, clinical and operational analytics would be their primary focus.
About 13 percent of CIOs said enhancements to their virtual and telehealth technology would be their top investment priority, while 7 percent said the revenue cycle would be their primary focus. Six percent plan on investing principally in enterprise resource planning systems.
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The investment priorities stem from some of the biggest healthcare IT challenges that executives face, the survey found. Improving clinical and business processes topped the list of challenges, closely followed improving operating efficiency and delivering business intelligence and analytics.
These spending plans are likely to remain the same among 63 percent of respondents for the next 12 months and for 44 percent during the next two years, the survey found. For the next 12 months, 18 percent of respondents expect higher spending. Thirty-six percent of respondents expect an increase in operating budgets during the next two years.
About a quarter of all respondents said their organizations were implementing or investing in cloud computing infrastructure (servers, storage and data centers), and 18 percent said their investments were in enterprise resource planning solutions. Other key functions for the cloud among the respondents include EHRs (10 percent), enterprise systems solutions (10 percent) and disaster recovery (8 percent). The biggest challenges and concerns with cloud computing were regarding data loss and privacy, applications not being fully optimized with the cloud and integration with existing architecture.
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