Internet, new insurance rules are the hot topics
More providers respond to this year’s survey
The 11th Annual HIMSS (Healthcare Infor-mation and Management Systems Society)/ IBM Leadership Survey got a little help from e-mail this year, increasing response rates 11% over 1999.
The survey was posted on both the HIMSS and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives Web sites. In addition, this year’s survey was also e-mailed to HIMSS members and other health care professional organizations prior to the HIMSS annual conference in Dallas in April. "This new approach gave survey participants the time and opportunity to research necessary data and ensure quality responses to each survey question," says Gary Kurtz, FHIMSS, HIMSS chairman.
The plan seemed to pay off. This year, 1,111 senior executives and managers from health care provider and vendor organizations around the world responded to the survey, an increase of 11% over 1999. Of those participants, the number of health care providers (860) represented an increase of 12% (eighty-seven percent of respondents were members of the Chicago-based HIMSS). The survey was completed over a one-month period, from March 9 to April 7.
Internet technology a concern
The survey covered several topics, including information technology (IT) priorities, overall IT utilization, IT budgets, computer-based patient records (CPRs), data security, Web applications, and emerging IT technologies.
Respondents said the most widespread single business issue facing health care providers over the next two years is compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (70%). Providers also showed their concern for containing costs by naming "improving operational efficiency" (60%), cost pressures (55%), and Medicare cutbacks (38%) as top business issues in their organizations.
e-health emerged as one of the leading business issues among providers in the survey. About 44% of the participating providers felt that e-health was a top business issue for their organization.
When asked for their top IT priorities for this year, nearly two-thirds of the participating providers said "deploy Internet technologies" (63%). Almost as many said that "upgrading systems for HIPAA" was a top priority (55%). Many providers still expressed concerns about recruiting and retaining quality IT staff (37%).
Considering their priorities for the next two years, respondents named clinical information systems (71%), Web-based applications (70%), and clinical data repositories (65%) as the most important health care application areas for IT investment. Respondents also indicated that they placed higher importance of implementing CPR and EDI (electronic data interchange) in the next two years than in this year.
Other important findings
The survey also reported these findings in reference to the following topics:
• IT barriers. Lack of financial support and proving return on investment (ROI) for IT investments are the two most significant barriers to IT implementation, and they have grown in significance since 1999, the survey reports. About one-fifth of the participating providers felt that the top barrier at their organizations to implementing IT was "difficulty in providing quantifiable benefits/returns on investment," while another one-fifth felt that "lack of adequate financial support for IT" was the most significant barrier. Both have grown in importance since 1999, especially the ROI barrier (15% in 1999, 22% today).
• Security concerns. By far, respondents named HIPAA compliance as their top security concern (72%). Internal breaches of security (51%) was the second most cited security concern among participating providers. This compares to 38% who were concerned about "unauthorized use of data by third parties," and 31% who were concerned about "external breaches of security."
• HIPAA compliance preparation. Ninety percent of survey respondents claimed to have some knowledge about HIPAA requirements. More than one-third of them have installed security technologies, documented security policies and procedures, and assessed organizational compliance during the past year to move toward HIPAA compliance. About one-quarter of the providers have hired a security officer or implemented security policies and procedures. These were substantially lower in the 1999 survey.
• IT budgets. Sixty-six percent of respondents expected an increase in IT budgets in 2000, compared to 71% in 1999. Only 33% of this year’s respondents reported that their organizations’ IT budgets will definitely increase, down from 44% in 1999. Another 33% said their budgets will probably increase, and 17% of respondents anticipated no change in their budgets.
• IT staff. Most health care providers expected an increase in their IT staff during the next 12 months in the range of 5% to 10%.
• Technology adoption. The most widespread technologies among health care providers are Web sites and high-speed networks, followed by intra-nets, client-server systems and data security systems. Nearly all participating providers (96%) currently have a Web site. The providers said they primarily use the sites for promotion or marketing purposes. Employee recruitment, consumer health information and on-line physician/provider directory were the other widespread functions of current Web Sites. During the next two years, respondents expected e-business (46%) and voice recognition (35%) to be the most widely adopted new technologies.
• Outsourcing practices. The importance of the Web and e-business is shown in the ways providers are choosing to outsource their services. For example, Web site (33%) and applications development (25%) were the most widespread IT outsource services used now among the participating providers, followed by network operation support, e-business, PC support, and technical support (all in 18% to 19% range).
Respondents also showed an interest in a new topic on this year’s survey — on-line application service providers (ASPs). More than two-thirds (68%) of health care providers surveyed expressed interest in the concept of renting applications over the Internet on an "as-needed" basis. One-fifth were extremely or very interested in ASP services, while almost one-half were somewhat interested. Nearly one-third (31%) of the providers were not interested.
The survey also showed that providers relied most heavily on industry peers (60%) and customer references (52%) when making their decisions on where to outsource their IT services. About one-third of the providers pointed to consulting firms (36%), trade shows/conferences (33%), and publications (28%) as other key influences.
(For a look at the complete 11th Annual HIMSS/ IBM Leadership Survey, visit HIMSS’ Web site at www.himss.org.)
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