News Feature | April 10, 2015

Survey Breaks Down IT Purchasing Plans By Hospital Size

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

Healthcare Spending

The year 2015 promises to be interesting with respect to healthcare purchasing, and a survey from Peer 60 breaks down trends and other information around the industry that solutions providers will find useful in assessing their client bases.

The survey answers three key questions:

  • Where the billions planned to be spent in 2015 will go
  • Which vendors are best poised to increase their market share
  • Which vendors are likely to lose market share

It includes feedback from more than 950 healthcare decision-makers, representing more than 25 percent of the hospitals in the U.S. Among those surveyed, more than 80 percent were C-suite executives, with the rest VPs, department heads, or directors.

Peer 60 makes sure to point out the large sample size as an indication that the study is one of the most accurate predictors of market behavior on the subject available.

Purchasing Overview

ICD-10 promises to lead the way in decision-maker focus in 2015, with almost 60 percent of hospital leaders planning to address it this year. The number is even higher for CFOs, CIOs, CMIOs, and CMOs, at 70 percent. Population health management, patient engagement, and revenue cycle management came in directly behind it, all claiming more than 30 percent of respondent attention.

The Importance Of Size

Hospitals were divided into five groups for the survey:

  • less than 100 beds
  • 100 to 250 beds
  • 251 to 500 beds
  • 501 to 1000 beds
  • more than 1000 beds

The majority of hospitals responding to the survey (just over 450) had fewer than 100 beds.

As expected, the larger the hospital, the more likely it was to plan on spending on new purchases as the year progresses. However, very small hospitals were more likely than any other size under 500 to plan on making an EHR (electronic health records) purchase.

EHR Trends

Though EHRs have become common in the industry, the survey still found that more than 26 percent of U.S. hospitals are replacing existing solutions, or at the very least, adding a solution to their ambulatory settings.

The survey highlights the fact that EHR replacement is a growing market, with 27 percent indicating they’re looking to replace their existing EHR, and 31 percent not being sure they’ll be returning to their current vendor.

Data Analytics

The survey also provides detailed insight on the purchasing of data analytics solutions. More than 60 percent of CIOs indicated that their organization was planning to make a purchase in the area this year.

Much like the world of EHR, data analytics replacement is fertile ground, with at least 25 percent of organizations with a current product looking for new solutions.

Other Solutions

The survey provides similar insight into solutions including:

  • patient engagement
  • population health management
  • revenue cycle management
  • data security
  • ICD-10 migration

Each section includes market breakdowns, charts and information on vendor competitiveness, and insight into the impact of size on market preferences.