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Optimizing health IT to improve health system performance: A work in progress
Robert S Rudin1, Shira H Fischer1, Cheryl L Damberg2
1RAND Corporation, Boston, MA, USA.
Healthcare (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
|October 17, 2020
Summary
Health systems must build a foundation with health information technology (IT) before using it to improve performance. Foundational IT activities, like standardizing electronic health records (EHRs), are crucial for transformation.
Area of Science:
- Health Services Research
- Health Information Technology
- Healthcare Management
Background:
- Despite substantial investments, health information technology (IT) has not consistently delivered expected performance improvements or transformational change in healthcare.
- Health systems are actively exploring strategies to optimize the use of IT for enhanced performance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify and describe the specific activities health systems undertake to better leverage health IT for performance improvement.
- To understand the progression and challenges in implementing IT for healthcare transformation.
Main Methods:
- Conducted semi-structured telephone interviews with C-suite executives from 24 U.S. health systems between 2017 and 2019.
- Employed a qualitative thematic analysis approach to interpret interview data.
Main Results:
- Health systems engage in two primary categories of IT activities: foundational work and direct performance improvement.
- Foundational activities, such as consolidating to a single electronic health record (EHR) platform and standardizing data and care processes, are prerequisites for performance gains.
- Performance improvement activities include leveraging data analytics, promoting evidence-based medicine, reducing variation, and enhancing population health management and care convenience.
Conclusions:
- Effective utilization of IT for performance enhancement demands significant, sustained effort from health systems beyond initial hardware and software investments.
- Accelerating IT-driven change requires improved mechanisms for best practice dissemination and advanced technical assistance.
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