News Feature | October 31, 2014

Healthcare Providers Don't Trust Infrastructure, According To Report

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

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A Meritalk report (available here) revealed that 96 percent of providers believe their infrastructure is not prepared to leverage technologies like the cloud, Big Data, mobile, social, or to optimize their EMR (electronic medical records).

According to the report, FutureCare: Cloud, Big Data, Mobile, and Social Optimize the EMR many healthcare providers are planning to implement the technologies listed above, but their faith is low. The report highlights opportunities for VARs not only in infrastructure development, but also in targeting services along pain points that providers are already focused on.

The cloud is being used widely, but there is progress to be made, with about two-thirds of the respondents running EMR applications in the cloud, with 49 percent running private models and 35 percent using public/private hybrids. Big Data is a growing technology, with 50 percent saying that it has helped them reduce readmissions and keep track of and evaluate patient outcomes. Big Data has also been important in conducting cost-benefit analysis in efforts to reduce patient risk (indicated by 46 percent of respondents), managing staffing levels in clinical and IT functions (38 percent), and prescribing preventative care (24 percent).

Mobile And Social

According to the report, mobile and social are becoming increasingly important to healthcare providers, with 57 percent of IT leaders saying that mobile has become an “important tool in viewing real-time patient information as caregivers work toward making more informed patient care decisions.”

Additional uses for mobile included clinical notifications (46 percent), ePrescribing (41 percent), and patient communication and reminders (38 percent). Social is used in conjunction with EMR to facilitate secure collaboration by 54 percent of responding organizations; 52 percent use social for patient communication and sending medication/follow-up reminders; and an additional 31 percent collect data from wearable technology.

Spending Increases

IT leaders surveyed indicated expected spending increases in cloud, Big Data, mobile, and social technologies in 2015, and that by 2016, U. S hospitals can expect to save billions in IT spending, specifically:

  • Big Data: 21  percent of their annual IT budget, or $7.2B
  • Cloud: 20 percent of their annual IT budget, or $6.9B
  • Mobile: 16 percent of their annual IT budget, or $5.5B
  • Social: 11 percent of their annual IT budget, or $3.8B

Preparedness

When questioned about the preparedness of their EMR only 4 percent of respondents indicated they were already prepared. For the 96 percent that indicated they were unprepared, their leaders say they will enhance security systems (47 percent), improve application performance (38 percent), invest in cloud solutions (31 percent), and modernize back up and recovery (31 percent).

To read more, the full report can be viewed here.