50 benchmarks, stats and data points for CIOs to know

The roles of the CIO and hospital IT departments are undergoing an industry-wide transition as health IT becomes more of a strategic business department.

Here are 50 statistics and data points CIOs should know about key elements of the health IT environment.

EHR market share

1. According to March 2015 CMS data, MEDITECH is the most commonly used EHR among hospitals attesting to meaningful use, with 946 hospitals reporting using this vendor as their primary EHR system.
2. Following MEDITECH as the most commonly used EHRs among meaningful use-attesting hospitals are Cerner (931 hospitals) and Epic (835 hospitals).
3. For healthcare professionals attesting to meaningful use, the most commonly used EHR system is Epic, with more than 109,000 eligible professionals attesting on the Verona, Wis.-based platform.
4. The second most commonly used EHR among eligible professionals attesting to MU is Allscripts (49,481), and the third most commonly used is eClinicalWorks (42,615).

Salary, compensation and workforce

1. Most full-time health IT workers report a salary range of either $50,000 to $69,999 or $100,000 to $119,999, according to a report from Greythorn. Both salary ranges accounted for 18 percent of survey respondents.
2. Just 2 percent of respondents to Greythorn's survey reported making more than $160,000 a year.
3. A 2013 survey from CHIME found healthcare CIOs earn an average base salary of $208,417. The survey gathered responses from 263 CHIME members.
4. The CHIME survey also found a wide variety of salaries depending on the type of organization. CIOs at multi-hospital systems reported an average base salary of $254,054 while CIOs at critical access hospitals reported an average base salary of $125,573.
5. Healthcare CIO salaries tend to be higher than those for CIOs of other industries, according to a 2015 CIO.com analysis of Computerworld and IDG Enterprise's annual salary survey. According to the analysis, healthcare and medical service CIOs make an average of $173,941, which is higher than government CIOs ($113,972), education CIOs ($151,889) and IT/computer-related services CIOs ($146,111).
6. However, healthcare CIO salaries were smaller than those of legal/insurance/real estate CIOs ($191,762) and non-computer manufacturing CIOs ($192,885), according to the CIO.com analysis.
7. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of medical records and health information technician jobs is expected to grow by 22 percent between 2012 and 2022, from 186,000 to 227,400.
8. According to a CSO report, lead software security engineers have the highest paying IT security job, with an average salary of $233,333.
9. Chief security officers came in second, with an average salary of $225,000. Then came global information security director ($200,000), security consultant ($198,909) and CISO ($192,500).

Federal incentives

1. As of March 2015, CMS payments for meaningful use of EHRs surpassed $30 billion.
2. On Jan. 1, 2015, approximately 257,000 eligible professionals faced a 1 percent cut in Medicare payments for failing to meet MU requirements. Additionally, approximately 28,000 eligible professionals faced a 2 percent cut for failing to meet both MU and the Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program requirements.
3. All 50 states, Washington, D.C., and five territories have launched their Medicaid EHR Incentive Program. Among the earliest adopters were Alabama and Missouri, who launched their programs in April 2011. Hawaii was among the last to launch its program, doing so in September 2013.
4. According to May 2015 CMS data, there are 539,975 active registrations for Medicare and Medicaid meaningful users. Approximately 354,075 are Medicare eligible professionals, 181,084 are Medicaid eligible professionals and 4,816 are hospitals.
5. ICD-10 is slated to go into effect Oct. 1, 2015. While many in the industry voice their concern about the go-live date, CMS data about the most recent ICD-10 end-to-end testing week in June revealed 90 percent of test claims were accepted, up from 81 percent accepted during the first testing week in January.

Strategic initiatives and priorities

1. A September 2014 CHIME survey, conducted by Health Catalyst, found analytics as healthcare IT leaders' top priority, with 54 percent of respondents indicating so.
2. Following analytics, IT leaders' priorities are investments in population health initiatives (42 percent), ICD-10 (30 percent), accountable care and shared risk initiatives (29 percent) and consolidation-related investments (11 percent).
3. In the 2015 HIMSS Cybersecurity Survey, 87 percent of respondents said cybersecurity as a business priority has increased over the past year.
4. According to a February 2015 McKinsey & Company report, 43 percent of IT leaders believe they are effective at managing IT infrastructure. Forty percent said they were somewhat effective and 15 percent of the 363 IT respondents said they were either slightly or not at all effective.
5. The McKinsey & Company survey found both IT (62 percent) and non-IT leaders (65 percent) view improving effectiveness of business processes as a top IT priority. However, views on priorities split from there. IT executives' second most common IT priority was improving cost efficiency of business processes (44 percent), while non-IT executives' second IT priority was providing managers with information to support planning and decision making.
6. Additionally, non-IT executives were more likely to expect increased spending budgets for IT than IT executives. Forty-five percent of non-IT executives expected an increase in IT budgets or operating expenses compared to 28 percent of IT executives. Sixty-six percent of non-IT executives expected an increase in IT spending on new investments, compared to 52 percent of IT executives, according to the McKinsey & Company report.
7. When asked what initiatives are most important to improving IT performance, both IT and non-IT respondents most often said improving the business' accountability for IT-related projects (45 percent), followed by improving overall level of talent and capabilities of the IT staff (44 percent).

Telemedicine and eHealth

1. Seventy-six percent of physicians surveyed by American Well and QuantiaMD said dermatology is the specialty in which video consultations would be the most valuable, followed by 54 percent indicating psychiatry and 46 percent indicting infectious disease. Respondents were allowed to select more than one answer.
2. A new study in Telemedicine Journal and e-Health found Medicare pays just 9 cents per patient per year on telemedicine. The federal agency's 2012 telemedicine related expenditures equaled approximately $5 million, which is 65.2 percent of its allowed $7.7 million dedicated to telemedicine-related charges.
3. A January 2015 poll conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of American Well found 64 percent of American adults are willing to have a video consultation with a physician.
4. Millennials, those between 18 and 34 years old, were the most likely to be interested in telehealth (74 percent), and the interest declined from there. Seventy percent of individuals between 35 and 44 years old expressed interest, 64 percent of individuals between 45 and 64 years old expressed interest and 41 percent of individuals age 65 and above expressed interest, according to the Harris Poll survey.
5. Additionally, a study from MDLIVE published in May 2014 found 82 percent of young adults would prefer a telehealth visit over an in-person visit.
6. A Markets and Markets report projects the global telehealth market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 24.2 percent through 2020. The market was valued at $2.2 billion in 2015 and is expected to be worth $6.5 billion in 2020.

mHealth tools

1. According to a report from market research and consulting firm Parks Associates, 38 percent of consumers look up health information online.
2. Online convenience appears to draw in health consumers, as 26 percent indicated they make appointments, check lab results and manage prescriptions online.
3. Wearables are also an emerging trend. A report from app analytics and ad platform Flurry Analytics found the use of mHealth and fitness apps has grown 87 percent faster than the entire app industry.
4. Physicians are also quick to adopt mHealth tools. A 2014 report by Booz & Company (now Strategy&) found physicians are 250 percent more likely to own a tablet than other consumers.
5. Four out of 10 physicians said tablets help reduce time spent on administrative tasks, according to the Booz & Company report.
6. Additionally, 88 percent of physicians want patients to monitor their health at home, according to the report.

Data breaches

1. Data breaches are occurring in healthcare at a higher frequency than before. According to the Ponemon Institute, the main cause of healthcare data breaches are criminal attacks, the rate of which has increased 125 percent over the past five years.
2. The Ponemon Institute study also found 12 percent of healthcare organizations and 10 percent of business associates reported a data breach with a malicious insider as the root cause.
3. Over the past year, 78 percent of healthcare breaches were due to web-borne malware attacks, according to the study.
4. The surge in data breaches could cost the industry an additional $6 billion a year, according to the Ponemon Institute.
5. Yet, 56 percent of respondents in the Ponemon Institute study said they lack proper funds and resources for incidence response.
6. On an individual basis, the average consolidated cost of a data breach is $3.8 million, according to another Ponemon Institute reported titled "Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis."
7. The Global Analysis report indicates healthcare has the highest cost per stolen record, averaging at $363.
8. The fear of data breaches is also affecting patients. Forty-five percent of patients are moderately or very concerned about security breaches involving personal health information, and 21 percent withhold personal information from physicians due to this fear, according to a survey from software comparison company Software Advice.
9. The Software Advice survey also found 54 percent of respondents said they would switch providers if a data breach were to occur. However, 37 percent of those individuals would stay with their providers following a breach if the provider demonstrated specific examples of improvements to its security policies.
10. However, among seven industries, consumers thought healthcare was the fourth most likely to experience a data breach, with 28 percent indicating so, according to a Unisys Security Insights Survey. Healthcare followed retail, government and telecommunications. Airlines, banks and utilities came after healthcare.

Cybersecurity

1. According to the 2015 HIMSS Cybersecurity Survey, healthcare security teams use an average of 11 different technologies dedicated to cybersecurity.
2. While more than half of survey respondents said they employ full-time personnel to manage information security, nearly four in 10 said there are too many new and emerging cybersecurity threats to track.
3. In the same survey, 64 percent of respondents who had recently experienced a security incident discovered the incident within 24 hours, but 20 percent still lost patient, financial or operational data.

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