1997 HIMSS/HP leadership survey identifies information technology concerns - Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society/Hewlett-Packard

Healthcare Financial Management, August, 1997

The 1997 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society/ Hewlett-Packard (HIMSS/HP) Leadership Survey of 1,200 chief information officers, CEOs, senior managers, and medical records professionals found that 87 percent use the Internet, mainly for e-mail, clinical research, and consumer education, and 80 percent expressed some commitment to implementing an intranet. Unauthorized access to computerized medical information, however, is a concern. Forty-two percent of the respondents identified internal "curiosity seekers" rather than external hackers as their primary concern.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents indicated that gaining competitive advantage in the market is driving computerization in their organizations. The most important information system priorities identified by respondents were upgrading information technology (IT) infrastructures (28 percent) and integrating systems in multivendor environments (24 percent). IT budgets were expected to increase by at least 50 percent for 21 percent of respondents and by 10 to 40 percent for 51 percent of respondents.

Respondents' priorities for application development in the next year were implementing clinical data repositories (21 percent), electronic medical records (19 percent), and new clinical systems (16 percent). The top three clinical forces driving computerization were the same as those identified in the 1996 HIMSS/HP survey: the demand for comparative outcomes data (28 percent), the need to automate patient records (27 percent), and the need to provide decision-support capability to caregivers (20 percent).

Forty-nine percent indicated they are using telehealthcare applications, especially in radiology, cardiology, and internal medicine. Implementing computer technology will be a priority for physicians' offices (25 percent) and administration and finance (19 percent). The computer-based patient record (CPR) was identified as a significant investment by 34 percent of respondents, and 17 percent have a strategic plan for implementing a CPR, while 27 percent are evaluating the technology.

Primary IT frustrations facing respondents were lack of a strategic organizational information systems plan (23 percent), finding and maintaining a good technical staff (20 percent), lack of funding (14 percent), and keeping up with technological change (13 percent).