Final Report: Vendors

1. Executive Summary

The 13th Annual HIMSS Leadership Survey, sponsored by Superior Consultant Company, suggests that interest in HIPAA, clinical information systems, and data security is strong; while the importance of firewalls, thin clients, and ASPs will decrease in the next two years.

• HIPAA: Respondents reported that security upgrades on IT systems to meet HIPAA requirements is their clients' top priority (56%), and is projected to remain a priority in the next two years (59%). Seventy-two percent of respondents believe HIPAA compliance will be the business issue that will most impact healthcare in the next two years.
• Clinical applications: Clinical information systems were identified most frequently - 65% - as the most important healthcare application area for clients over the next two years. Computer-based patient records (58%) and point-of-care decision support (48%) were also identified as important applications.
• Data Security: When asked to identify the technologies they considered most important to their healthcare clients now, nearly half of the respondents (48%) indicated data security. Forty-six percent of respondents identified firewalls as one of the top two most important security tools for healthcare organizations currently, while only 27% believe that will remain the case two years from now. Rather, in two years, 32% predicted that data encryption will be among the most important security tools in healthcare, along with biometric technologies (29%).
• ASPs: Forty-five percent of respondents indicated they offer ASP applications, and 39% indicated they do not. The top three ASP applications are the electronic patient record (37%), practice management (29%), and departmental systems (22%). Almost half of respondents - 48% - who do not offer an ASP at this time do not anticipate offering an ASP in the future.
• IT Outsourcing: Over half of respondents (55%) predicted their outsourcing revenues would increase in the next twelve months. When respondents were asked which of their service areas they expected the revenue increase to impact, the areas most frequently identified were systems integration (38%), system installation (32%), and technical support (32%).

Other notable findings include:

• Lack of adequate financial support for IT at a client's facility, a clients lack of a strategic IT plan or the failure to execute an implementation plan already in place, and difficulty in proving quantifiable benefits/ROI on IT investment to client were identified as the most significant barriers to successful IT implementation in client organizations.
• Programming was identified as the primary area where vendor organizations have information technology staffing needs. System design (26%) and networking (25%) were also identified as areas with staffing needs.

Next: Methodology