How health systems can get the most out of technology investments

Some well-intentioned technology efforts can fall short of expectations.

Peyman Zand, the chief strategy officer of CereCore, talked about the challenges of gaining traction for technology efforts in the latest episode of Healthy Bottom Line, a podcast from Chief Healthcare Executive®.

“I think what we find is that a lot of these investment priorities, IT or otherwise, a lot of these investment priorities are not tightly aligned to the overall strategic objectives,” Zand says. “And they believe, in many cases, that it is, but it is a lack of rigorous processes to tightly align them. I think that's one of the main challenges we see.”

Health systems and hospitals need to find a greater alignment beyond even the desires of the CEO, he suggests.

Organizations should look at goals such as patient safety or physician satisfaction and direct efforts toward meeting those objectives.

Zand says these discussions actually take time, and the chief information officer, the chief financial officer and other key leaders may need to take several months to identify and prioritize those plans.

“This is not something that you do a week or two before budget planning,” Zand says. “This is something that you have to start now, and hopefully in the next fiscal year you will have a tight agreement to those alignment attributes.”

Zand describes what he calls the “Achilles’ heel” of chief information officers.

“What happens is that there is always more demand than there is budget,” he says.

Because there are finite resources, it’s critical to take the time to make informed decisions and then get buy-in from leadership teams on the top priorities.

“Identify those attributes and all that amongst the executives, but cascade that communication down the rest of the organization, so that when people come up with those demands, they have already put it through those types of attributes that you already identified,” Zand says. “So less demand comes up because … the rest of the organization now understands what are some of the priorities, what's going to get approved. And so what comes up is really the stuff that is important, because it meets those attributes.”

Health systems can utilize artificial intelligence to be more efficient, especially with administrative and business operations, as long as they take time to develop plans to use those solutions effectively.

“I think there are ways for us to actually look at AI and automation specifically to reduce our costs dramatically,” Zand says.

Health systems should be looking at AI to improve their billing processes.

“Hospitals in general, including CIOs, really need to take a look at their revenue cycle environment, because I see a lot of money being left on the table,” Zand says.

“They don't look at it as necessarily being an IT kind of a thing, but it is. Technology, automation and AI can actually solve a lot of your revenue shortages and revenue recoveries, etc. So take advantage of that.”

Some health systems are devising creative ways to meet technology needs, including securing outside funding for some initiatives and even cooperating with other hospitals and systems on some purchases.

Check out the full conversation below. And you can subscribe to Healthy Bottom Line wherever you get your podcasts.