Controlling information technology costs, Part 2

Health care executives are increasingly frustrated by Information Technology (IT). Although our industry is often accused of underinvesting in technology (hospitals average 2-3 percent of their costs in IT, compared to other industry's 8-10 percent), when IT investments are made, they fail to reflect demonstrable return to the bottom line. Yet the effective deployment of technology is so critical to the success of the organization and can in itself cause the failure of a health care system. While being forced to invest significant amounts of resources in the past two years preparing for Y2K, health care organizations have come under increasing financial pressures due to other industry developments.