HIT Feeling The Weight Of Government Regulations
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Regulatory mandates dictate IT decision making and exceed IT administrators' skill sets.
A Peak 10 study has concluded as many as 60 percent of health IT professionals surveyed feel government regulations are weighing down their industry. The study, The Peak 10 National IT Trends in Healthcare: Insights from US Healthcare IT Decision Makers Study, found three out of five HIT professionals believe government mandates are having a negative effect on their industry, while 94 percent said regulation mandate compliance influences IT strategy and decision-making.
And almost unanimously, respondents claimed they lack the expertise necessary to navigate the maze of government regulations.
Researchers from Peak 10 polled C-level executives and information technology professionals from 149 healthcare organizations regarding industry challenges and the future state of the healthcare industry. According to Peak 10, HIT pros surveyed are responding to these shifting demands on their departments by adopting new strategies, increasingly using cloud tech for Software as a Service and non-mission critical workloads, working with partners to address security vulnerabilities, and relying heavily on third-party health IT consultants to supplement their technical knowledge.
“Healthcare organizations need a smooth transition to electronic health record (EHR) systems,” Christina Kyriazi, manager of market insights and analytics at Peak 10 said. “Technology is seen as the enabler to a better patient experience, giving patients more control over their personal information and healthcare history, therefore empowering them to trust their healthcare provider and to make more sound and well-informed decisions for themselves.”
According to Allen Skipper, Peak 10 CCO, “It's not enough for cloud and data center services providers to help customers maximize their IT assets. It's critical for these partners to continually engage in initiatives to better understand the needs of today's healthcare IT professionals now and in the future, driving innovation and enabling developments to further enhance patient care quality and safety.”
As Healthcare Dive point out, many healthcare organizations are turning to pricey outsourced solutions to meet these regulated mandates, but that is not a sustainable solution in the long run. What hospital IT leaders and staff need to do is absorb training from the third-party experts they've hired in order to apply that knowledge to their own in-house management of the legislated mandates. If that doesn’t happen, the healthcare industry could be headed for a crisis point once the consultants leave the premises.