Health system monthly IT spend up 8% on average

Health systems have been increasing IT spend over the last few years to unify EHRs, add artificial intelligence functionality and improve infrastructure and data management in preparation for future growth.

Much of the spending is tied to outsourced contracts with vendor partners. Kaufman Hall examined the average monthly spending change for services across organizations and found the most significant IT spend increases with children’s hospitals. Academic medical centers and acute care hospitals also saw a slight uptick in monthly IT spend.

By category:

Information technology

• Academic medical centers: 7.5%
• Acute care hospitals: 7.5%
• Children’s hospitals: nearly 16%

Healthcare technology management:

• Academic medical centers: about 8%
• Acute care hospitals: about 7%
• Children’s hospitals: 10%

By contrast, acute care hospitals reported around 9.5% increase in monthly spend for financial and accounting services, and 11% increase in marketing spend.

Blaine Douglas, senior vice president and general manager of indirect spend and purchased services at Kaufman Hall, recommended health systems sort spend data by vendor, category, frequency and volume to see trends over time and identify inconsistencies, “rogue” contracts and other issues.

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