Final Report: Providers

5. IT Barriers

Frustration continues regarding lack of financial support, vendors' inability to deliver products, and difficulties with end-user acceptance.

Lack of financial support continues to limit implementing new IT tools. Inadequate financial support for information technology was cited by 27 percent of respondents as the most significant barrier to successfully implementing IT at their facilities. Vendors' inability to effectively deliver product or service to their clients' satisfaction (17 percent) also continues to be a significant barrier to IT implementation. Rounding out the top three barriers is difficulty in achieving end-user acceptance or use (16 percent). This survey's top three responses all reflected an increase of between 4 percent and 6 percent compared with last year's results.

As a barrier to successful IT implementation, demonstrating return-on-investment decreased for the second year in a row, from 15 percent to 13 percent. The recruitment and retention of high-quality IT staff also fell for the second consecutive year. Only 4 percent of this year's respondents identified it as a concern, compared to 6 percent last year.

Figure:

Figure 9. Most Significant Barriers to Implementing IT

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