CIOs Need to Get a Handle on Their Apps

A new survey of CHIME members finds that application rationalization is a top priority among CIOs, yet many healthcare organizations aren’t investing the necessary resources or governance.

So much of healthcare these days is organized through apps. And it’s often the CIO’s job to manage those apps, making sure they’re up to date and productive and weeding out the old and ineffective ones.

But while application rationalization is a key priority of a healthcare organization’s application portfolio management (APM) strategy, a new survey finds that many health systems and hospitals aren’t putting the effort into analyzing and decommissioning old technology. And it’s costing them a lot of money and efficiency.

The survey, conducted by Clearsense of College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) members CIOs and IT executives, finds that more than three quarters of executives see app rationalization as a high priority, yet only 20% of their organizations have a program up and running.

Another 44% say they’re setting up a program, 16% are still in the planning phase and 20% haven’t even started.

“Health systems are under immense financial pressure, yet many are missing one of the most immediate opportunities to reduce cost,” Clearsense CEO Jason Rose said in a press release accompanying the survey. “With the right structure, health systems can finally capture the savings they’ve been leaving on the table and build the data foundation required for future innovation.”

As the healthcare industry embraces AI, and as new opportunities open up for concepts like digital health, virtual care and remote monitoring, application management is rising to the top of every organization’s to-do list. CIOs and their counterparts need to have a clear grasp on where healthcare data is going and what’s being done with it.

According to the CHIME survey, 60% of those executives are overseeing between 250 and 1,000 different apps, while another 12% are managing between 1,000 and 3,000 apps and 8% are dealing with more than 3,000 apps.

The consequences of lax application management can be costly – literally. Unnecessary, redundant and ineffective apps take up time and data, not to mention fees spent on licensing and vendor contracts. They also pose a threat to the organization’s cybersecurity efforts, and can negatively impact operational and administrative functions, perhaps even clinical care.

This shows up in the reasons for archiving and decommissioning apps. According to the survey, the biggest motivator for app management is OpEx cost maintenance, or the removal of software licensing fees and maintenance costs, cited by 27% of executives surveyed.

Another 18% cited improved organizational and operational efficiency, 16% cited reduction of infrastructure costs, 12% listed cyber risk mitigation, and 2% cited improved access to unified data. And 24% just said all of the above.

Other results of the CHIME survey:

When asked how frequently they review and prioritize their app portfolio for archiving or decommissioning,

• 40% said as needed;
• 28% said annually;
• 20% said they have no formal review process; and
• 12% said quarterly.

When asked what level of governance supports their APM strategy,

• only 24% said their organization has a formal APM review process with defined policies and decision rights;
• 40% say they have an informal process with some structure;
• 24% say there’s ad-hoc decision-making through IT leadership; and
• 12% said there’s no governance structure in place.

When asked what level of involvement clinical and operational leaders have in APM efforts,

• 60% said clinical and operational leaders are consulted regularly;
• 20% said those leaders are informed but not involved; and
• 20% said they’re not involved at all.

When asked how successful they’ve been in decommissioning unnecessary or redundant apps to maximize cost takeout and minimize cyber risk,

• 20% report they’ve been highly successful;
• 40% said they’ve been moderately successful, having decommissioned the most impactful apps; and
• 40% said they’ve been minimally successful, indicating they still have a large number of apps that should be taken out of service.

Finally, when asked to list the biggest barrier to successful APM efforts,

• 29% cited lack of clear ownership or governance;
• 27% cited internal resistance to change;
• 21% cited competing IT priorities;
• 11% targeted budget constraints;
• 6% cited vendor lock-in or contract limitations; and
• 5% cited a lack of data on projected cost reduction from app removal.