Health Care: Adequate Healthcare IT Infrastructure Often Lacking

We described here last week the results of a recent report that questions the touted benefits of Electronic Health Records.  That report found that using EHRs may not save as much money as originally estimated.  Specifically, the report questioned whether EHRs actually would save money by reducing duplication of tests performed when patients visit multiple doctors.  The report found that doctors with access to EHRs were actually more likely to order additional imaging and lab tests when compared to a control group of doctors still using paper records.

A report titled Healthcare Tipping Point by CDW found that most healthcare workers have a high regard for healthcare IT.  A clear majority of physicians and nurses using electronic health records think that EHRs are superior to paper records.  84 percent call  ‘Healthcare IT’ as something that is invaluable or valuable to their jobs.  71 percent say that without Healthcare IT they would be able to accomplish only half or less of their job responsibilities.

The top benefits of Healthcare IT, as cited by doctors and nurses, include

• 85 percent – Better availability of Information
• 72 percent – Enables more accurate care for patients
• 68 percent – Better able to track follow-up patient care

But the CDW report uncovered a major problem area: inadequate IT infrastructure.  Increasingly EHR and Healthcare automation software is being deployed without first building out the infrastructure required to support the new system.   The report found that in 4 percent of cases, EHR systems were deployed without adding any additional storage capacity.  In 11 percent of the time, no additional investment in security was made.  And 10 percent of hospitals opened their network to patients and visitors, but there was no investment in additional wireless capacity.

The report notes that failing to make sure that the IT infrastructure into which EHR and healthcare software get deployed is adequate will likely to lead to problems.  Slow downs and system unavailability often result when systems are built on infrastructures that can’t adequately support the software and demand placed on it.

The CDW report notes that many health providers are reactionary in their IT planning.  It typically isn’t until after a number of complaints about system slowness have been lodged that there is incentive to beef up infrastructure capabilities.  78 percent of health IT professionals say that infrastructure improvements typically aren’t made until after they’ve received complaints.  The report suggests that many healthcare IT groups will need to address inadequate infrastructure in the very near term.  Increasingly data-intensive clinical tools are being introduced, and those tools are stressing the IT infrastructure, and putting greater demands on storage, bandwidth, and computing.  These new loads will likely require a greater investment in the healthcare IT infrastructure.