Study: Top health IT initiatives listed

According to a new study sponsored by healthcare IT company Logicalis, data storage is the top driver for many hospital and healthcare IT projects underway right now. However, when it comes to the projects themselves, predictably, EMRs are in the lead, according to the study, which names the top 10 IT initiatives being undertaken by healthcare organizations. The remainder of the list includes disaster recovery; medical archiving systems; storage consolidation/virtualization; backup; business intelligence; PACS; health IT infrastructure; compliance and the security of personal health information.

What's interesting about these conclusions is that they differ in some respects from those drawn by a status released by HIMSS in April [1]. For one thing, HIMSS respondents said that improving safety and reducing errors were key drivers of IT investment. Also, it's worth bearing in mind that according to HIMSS results, security breaches still seem to be rather common within healthcare organizations, with 18 percent of respondents having seen a breach within the past six months. If patient safety and security are key drivers, that takes one down a different road than projects driven by storage. I'm not sure how to reconcile these results--readers, what do you think?

To learn more about the study:
- read this Healthcare IT News piece [2]
- read the Logicalis press release [3]

Related Articles:
HIMSS: Patient safety top reason for IT investment [1]
Study: Hospital execs stress IT investment for coming years [4]
Study: Nursing point-of-care IT can interfere with workflow [5]
Study: Better health IT could give nurses more patient time [6]