Vendors and consultants are at odds with providers over health IT demand and prioritization, according to a Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society leadership and workforce survey.
For its report, HIMSS surveyed 369 U.S. health IT leaders from healthcare provider organizations, vendors and consulting firms.
Here are six things to know.
1. When asked to rank, on a scale of one to seven, how they prioritize certain information and technology, vendors and consultants differed from providers regarding patient safety (difference of 0.77), health information exchange, interoperability and data integration (difference of 0.75), and supply chain (difference of 0.61).
2. Providers, on average, ranked patient safety as their top priority, followed by privacy, security and cybersecurity; process improvement, workflow and change management; data analytics or clinical and business intelligence; and clinical informatics and clinician engagement.
3. Vendors and consultants, on average, ranked data analytics or clinical and business intelligence as their top priority, followed by health information exchange, interoperability and data integration; improving quality outcomes through health IT; privacy, security and cybersecurity; and EHRs.
4. The two differ in regard to their near-future IT demands. About 86 percent of vendors and consultants expect their business volume to increase next year, although 63 percent of hospitals expect their IT operating budgets to stay the same (21 percent) or be reduced (43 percent).
5. Providers are adding more information and technology leaders to their teams. Nearly 87 percent of provider organizations staff a CIO, up from 78 percent in 2017.
6. Only 24 percent of vendors said they are fully staffed, meaning 69 percent of them have open positions to fill, compared to 34 percent of hospitals that said they have open positions to fill.
Click here to download the report.
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