survey: Despite Cutbacks, Hospitals Are Moving Ahead With Some IT Projects

According to a survey conducted by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), hospitals and health systems are taking measured steps to cope with the nation’s financial crisis, including delaying capital projects and cutting capital and operating budgets.  Some key findings:

• More than half of the CFOs/VPs Finance (55%) are experiencing slight or significant delays in accessing capital and expect the financial crisis to last another 12 to 24 months.
• CFOs/VPs Finance are delaying or lengthening timeframes for completing new facilities or facility upgrades (74%), deferring IT equipment purchases (57%) and delaying or lengthening timeframes for implementing health IT initiatives (52%).
• CIOs are responding by implementing longer timeframes for application projects (63%) and reducing spending on outsourced IT services (34%).
• One-third (33%) of CFOs/VPs Finance have cut budgets while one in four (26%) have laid off staff and/or instituted a hiring freeze.
• Almost all respondents (94%) have cut IT budgets by extending implementation time for existing projects and delaying or reducing the slate of new projects.

Still it is encouraging that:

Even as they rein in spending, many providers are moving ahead with strategic clinical IT projects, which they see as integral to achieving greater operating efficiencies as well as other organizational goals such as increased patient safety. Investments in electronic health records (EHRs), computerized provider order entry (CPOE), and medication management remain high-priority projects for about half or more of all respondents.

Adoption of digital pathology will likely be slowed somewhat by the overall economic climate, but will continue because of the strategic value and long-term benefits...