Most health systems have some technical debt from past consolidation on the CIO's radar. While the technical debt might have been relegated to the bottom of their "to-do" lists in the past, too much technical debt could become a liability in the near future.
Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health has grown and consolidated multiple hospitals in the last 20 years, and elevated technical debt as an essential issue to resolve.
"What's happened is some various technologies have been incorporated into a larger enterprise, and those technologies sometimes are orphaned or left behind, but they're critical," said Steven Michaels, vice president and chief technology officer at Baylor Scott & White, on an episode of the "Becker's Healthcare Podcast." "They're critical to some sort of function, and there's a constant focus on really rationalizing the technology, modernizing it and trying to absorb and overcome some of that technical debt."
Baylor Scott & White has taken a proactive approach to resolving the issue by aligning the organization around goals. Every dollar spent on technology is a potential dollar taken away from patient care, and Mr. Michaels is keenly aware of how precious every penny is.
"We have to be careful about misinvestments, putting money towards a technology that maybe doesn't prove out to be what it needs to be, but also being conscious of that debt that is aging technology. That is going to become increasingly, increasingly problematic either from a reliability perspective and certainly from a cyber perspective," he said. "You'll end up with technology that is no longer supported and that becomes a real problem."
Investing time and financial resources into cybersecurity protection for old and unused technology isn't financially sustainable. Health systems can lean on partners to help resolve the technical debt and modernize systems in a meaningful way. Baylor Scott & White is an Epic shop and has developed a structure around rationalizing technology.
"When we rationalize technology, what we're trying to do is take advantage of some of those strategic partnerships because there's a lot of things that Epic can do that maybe we aren't providing today with some other third party," said Mr. Michaels. "It is really simplifying the environment and bringing the technology into some of those larger investments. That makes the environment a lot more streamlined and simple for the organization, but also allows us to deliver the technology in a more economical way for the organization."