IT Budget and Staff

While healthcare IT professionals were most likely to report that their IT budgets and staffing would increase in 2009, fewer respondents noted this trend than in previous years.

According to the 2008 HIMSS Analytics™ Database, IT departments in hospitals in the United States had an average of 24 IT FTEs (median six IT FTEs).  Less than half of survey respondents indicated that they anticipate that they would increase the number of IT staff at their organization in the next 12 months.  This is down from the 68 percent of respondents that predicted this would be the case in the 2008 survey.  Furthermore, the increases that will likely be made to staff will be minor.  More than one-quarter of respondents (28 percent) indicated that their staff would increase by less than ten percent.  This can be compared to four percent of respondents who projected that their staff would increase by more than 20 percent. 

Approximately 41 percent of respondents indicated that their staffing levels would not change in the next 12 months.  Sixteen percent indicated that they expected their staffing level to decrease; however most of these respondents expected their staff to decrease by less than 10 percent.  This is in comparison to last year when seven percent of respondents reported that the IT staff at their organization would decrease in the next 12 months. 

Only nine percent of respondents reported that they did not have any staffing needs at their organization; this is similar to what was reported in the 2008 survey.  Among the remaining respondents, 40 percent indicated that clinical application support was the area in which they had the most critical IT staffing needs.  This is consistent with what respondents to the 2008 survey reported.  

Nearly one-third of respondents (30 percent) reported that they have critical IT staffing needs in the area of process/workflow design.  Other areas frequently identified as having critical IT staffing needs are network/architecture support (26 percent), systems integration (24 percent), clinical transformation (22 percent) and IT security (22 percent).

Five percent or fewer respondents reported having critical staffing needs in the below areas:

  • Programming (five percent);
  • IT Management (four percent); and
  • Regulatory Issues (four percent).

Senior IT executives were also asked to identify which areas outside of the IT department they were responsible for.  Nearly all of the senior IT executives surveyed (92 percent) reported that they are responsible for at least one IT area outside of the IT department.  Most frequently identified was telecommunications, which was identified by 87 percent of respondents.  Respondents were much less likely to report responsibility for other areas such as medical informatics (27 percent), health information management (22 percent), or biomedical/clinical engineering (15 percent).  Ten percent of respondents also mentioned that they oversee other areas within their organization.  Some of these areas include admissions, library services, physician security, management engineering and quality. 

According to the 2008 HIMSS AnalyticsTM Database, US healthcare organizations spent an average of 2.27 percent of their total budget on IT. When compared to their IT budget in 2008, 55 percent reported that they expected their IT operating budget to increase in 2009.  Furthermore, only 30 percent stated that this increase would be a definite increase; 25 percent characterized this increase as probable.  This is down from the 78 percent of respondent who reported this to be the case in the 2008 survey.    

Nearly 20 percent of respondents indicated that their IT operating budget would remain unchanged in 2009, when compared to 2008.  This is slightly higher than the 12 percent reported last year.  A quarter of respondents indicated that their IT operating budget would decrease in 2009, with 10 percent characterizing the decrease as definite.  This represents an increase from 2008 survey results, in which it was reported that 1o percent of respondents expected a decrease in their IT operating budget. 

Among those respondents who indicated that their budget would increase in 2009, respondents were most likely (70 percent) to attribute the potential increase in spending to an overall growth in number of systems and technologies at their organization.  Half of respondents also attribute an anticipated budget increase to an overall budget increase at their organization (50 percent). These are very comparable to the reasons identified for an increase in last year’s survey.  Respondents were least likely to attribute an increase in their budget to a recent merger/partnership, competitive market threats and unfunded government mandates.  Each was identified by eight percent of respondents.  

Not surprisingly, three-quarters of respondents who expect that their budget will decrease attributed the decrease to a reduction in hospital revenue due to the current economic situation.  Two-thirds also stated that overall budget decreases were an issue that impacts their organizations IT operating budget.  Identified least frequently were the ability to prove IT return-on-investment and the closing of a facility or business unit.  Both were identified by three percent of respondents.

Previous HIMSS Leadership Surveys: