Enterprise Data Analytics Platform
According to a survey 40 percent of Hospital CIOs are planning to launch enterprise data analytics platforms in 2018. They continue to face challenges while implementing the new technological initiative. Physician adoption and buy-in One of the widespread challenges is getting physicians to adopt and accept the new IT initiative. According to the results over 60 percent of the CIOs? top priority is meeting with this challenge. EHR integration and interoperability 38 percent of CIOs? priority is optimizing EHR integration with systems of other hospitals and enhancing EHR interoperability within the organization. Most of the CIOs? communication related investment decisions will be based on EHR integration followed by ease of use for patients and fulfilling clinician needs. Mobile technology Adopting mobile technology will be based on three factors.
- Secure communication among healthcare team
- Monitoring systems? ability to notify clinicians
- Availability of critical test results
Patient care and safety depend on healthcare organizations have access to accurate and up-to-date patient data. Deploying enterprise data analytics platform will ensure clinicians have access to complete patient information.
Data Governance Plan
Another priority for CIOs is having a data governance plan. Data governance initiatives help in optimizing EHR use and improve the way of using health data. It also helps creating better standards for data. According to a survey of Healthcare CIOs at U.S hospitals, vital data governance initiative is a complex and hard work. Most of them (almost 56 percent) believe their organization lack the data governance capability. They believe, organizations must have sound data management techniques in order to increase trust in data, improving patient care and safety, maintaining compliance and manage costs. One of the biggest challenges they face while implementing data governance plan is resource scarcity. 70 percent of CIOs said resource scarcity has hindered their momentum. “As the amount of data continues to grow, and as healthcare organizations recognize the need to make better use of data, having an effective data governance strategy in place is more important than ever,” said Fred Powers, co-founder and CEO of Dimensional Insight, in a statement. “However, as indicated in our survey, there is still a need to make the governance process easier for everyone involved so that data is consistent, well-documented and trustworthy.
Patient-generated health data (PGHD)
Using patient-generated health data (PDHD) for enterprise data analytics platform and other health initiatives is also a priority on the to-do list of CIOs in 2018. PGHD is a most valuable resource for clinicians. CIOs will work to optimize EHR systems and integrate patient-generated health data into these systems. Since EHR systems are the most important source for retrieving patient data.
Digital Healthcare Strategy
According to a survey, over the next few years the biggest investment priority of healthcare CIOs will be digital healthcare tools. In 2018 healthcare CIOs will have lots of work to develop system-wide digital strategy. In order to develop digital healthcare strategy organizations (hospitals) will have to assign strategic roles to CIOs and clear vision on digital strategy. As a starting point more CIOs are planning to invest in cloud computing infrastructure to develop health systems that include more analytics, virtual health and remote monitoring services.
Strategic Role of Hospital CIOs
In 2018 healthcare CIOs should open themselves to a new role ?digital leaders?. By adopting the new strategic role they will be able to guide IT infrastructure in support of organizational growth and other activities like merger and acquisition. By adopting the new role they will need to shift responsibilities onto others in order to lead new digital transformation as a result of merger and acquisition. The activities include integrating acquired health system into current system and developing digital products and services.
Conclusion
Improving patient experience, achieving organizational growth and keeping up the pace with new technological initiatives are the top most priorities of healthcare CIOs over the next few years. They also want to make sure clinicians and healthcare professionals are on board.