Care Coordination Advancing Slowly

The survey shows that 48% of healthcare systems anticipate a major increase in HIT spending over the next two years, but 34% describe their approach to HIT spending as an operations investment, and 24% see it as a cost of doing business; only 23% see it as a clinical investment. In describing the ROI associated with HIT spending, 42% expect net cost to decrease over time, but 31% anticipate it would increase.

Improving IT systems is absolutely the cost of doing business, says Ray Chicoine, COO of Monarch HealthCare, in Irvine, Calif., a health system that includes 2,300 physicians who contract with 18 hospitals in Southern California. "You have to have a robust infrastructure, from A to Z. None of it fits easily and none of it is cheap," Chicoine says. "I think you can't escape that fact. To be an effective, integrated delivery model, you will have to spend more on technology, and that cost will continue to grow."