The Future of Healthcare IT: Peak 10 Presents National Trends

Featured article by Christina Kyriazi, Product Marketing and Analytics Manager, Peak10

Information technology (IT) is revolutionizing healthcare, streamlining decision making, and improving cost efficiency. As the role of healthcare in IT rapidly evolves, sound technology infrastructures allow organizations to become more efficient but also recognize the barriers they face in protecting patient data and meeting government regulations. Peak 10 recently conducted The Peak 10 2^nd National IT Trends in Healthcare Study, with results that demonstrated IT’s impact on healthcare as a whole, especially around key trends such as cloud adoption, IT leaders’ role in healthcare, and compliance and security.

First, there is a clear transition from in-house infrastructure to cloud adoption. Now more than ever hospitals are seeing the benefits and efficiencies of moving towards outsourcing and trusting the cloud, with a nearly 50 percent increase in cloud adoption for infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and about a third (33%) increase in cloud adoption for software as a service (SaaS). This is due to a number of reasons, namely, as technology has progressed to provide increased security, healthcare organizations have greater confidence in placing their trust in the cloud. Also, healthcare IT leaders are starting to see the efficiencies they gain from adopting the cloud. The cloud makes sense for healthcare organizations under pressure to deliver new applications that have the ability to improve patient care, as well as provide portals for patient education and wellness efforts. Historically, healthcare applications were designed to run on physical equipment, customized to very precise vendor specifications in order to guarantee performance and service level agreements.Leveraging cloud resources allows IT departments within these organizations to quickly spin up virtual resources, enabling them to be more agile.The healthcare industry is slowly overcoming its fear of the cloud as providers see the cloud as a means to help alleviate some industry pressures, cuts costs, drive efficiencies and increase mobility.

Second, the changing role of IT leaders or CIOs has become increasingly apparent. Healthcare CIOs have a sunrise to sunset role, and not enough hours in the day to keep up with demands of their own organizations. Executive pressure based on patient outcomes, strategic direction and overall patient satisfaction are all stress-ridden inputs. Furthermore, the complexity and demands of industry-changing healthcare IT initiatives are requiring more resources. Growing budgets, the need to employ big data, integrate the Internet of Things (IoT) and respond to the constant demand for real-time health information are impetuses for a changing healthcare IT department. Needs are shifting, and the creation of new IT roles and a greater propensity toward outsourcing are becoming routine. Historically, the role of the CIO has been more back of house. Now, with the shift to digital, the CIO has a driving seat in the boardroom. Healthcare CIOs are now responsible for lower cost and efficiency, quality of care for better outcomes and patient experience. These responsibilities require a more strategic role in IT leadership, which means more reliance on strategic IT partners. To put it simply, more complexity means more demands, which requires more resources. Practice areas such as big data and analytics are now critical to making intelligent business decisions for the future, but are quickly becoming a subject more complex than human beings can reasonably handle without the proper means.

Finally, considering all the data that is now electronic, we noticed that the biggest challenge for IT is security, compliance and data protection. For healthcare CIOs, it’s a “never sleep, always worry” environment. On top of internal and operational job functions, they have to keep up with technology innovation, stay compliant with changing regulations and remain alert of the newest security threats. Technology is changing at a rapid pace and while it is making patient’s lives easier, it is also increasing the amount of information that is at risk of falling into the wrong hands. Government regulations on security and patient informationare placing additional stress on healthcare providers. While decision makers say that their budgets are increasing, resources still remain strained due to pressure to remain in compliance and breach-free. This creates an even greater reliance on IaaS partners as well. Keeping healthcare infrastructures safe will always be a challenge. The addition of connected devices, EHR providers and more, adds to the challenge that service providers face on a daily basis. By staying connected, compliant and transparent, healthcare providers will ensure a seamless, efficient patient experience.

There is infinite power behind the evolution of information technology that will continue to impact healthcare organizations in ways that are upending the industry, not to mention the expectations of patients and medical professionals.Cloud and managed services providers have the opportunity to not only provide infrastructure, but also to monitor and manage security to take away some of the headaches and worries of healthcare providers. The technology and infrastructure behind a hospital’s IT department determines an organization’s level of success with meeting patient demands, keeping pace with change, and frankly, preventing disastrous repercussions of downtime or lack of availability. Robust cloud and hosting services are key in facilitating the ongoing evolution of the healthcare industry while supporting innovation to enhance patient care, quality and safety.

Christina Kyriazi is an experienced researcher and analytics professional with nearly a decade of experience in the field. She has a diverse background in B2C as well as B2B research, including hands-on research experience as well as strategic planning aimed at growth. She has previously served in market research functions at Family Dollar (retail/CPG), BB&T (finance/banking) and most recently Peak 10 (cloud computing/technology). Christina has commissioned a number of research projects and studies in the healthcare, financial and professional services sector, providing her with industry insights, trends and best practices as they relate to technology. She has been invited to speak and share these insights at events across the U.S. She graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with a degree in Economics, then earned her MBA at UNC Charlotte, and completed the Principles of Marketing Research program at the University of Georgia.