HFMA VIEWS

Scott MacStravic, Ph.D.

One of the many major challenges that healthcare organizations face is the internal need and demand by others for new and expensive IT investments. These relate to improving patient safety and overall quality of care, as well as enhancing efficiency and long-term cost savings. The challenge is how to obtain the necessary capital to be able to afford the necessary investments, since their ROI will often take years to show up, while the costs arise immediately.

But there is also a strong argument for “doubling up” on IT investments – not on the amounts of such investments, already at close to if not unaffordable levels, without outside aid – but on the purposes thereof. Most HCOs should begin, if they haven’t already, thinking in terms of IT’s uses in proactive health, not merely reactive sickness services. And IT is potentially far more useful and valuable, as well as far less expensive in this additional use as it is in traditional applications.