This story should surprise nobody who's ever struggled with higher-ups to get approval for health IT investment: It's often difficult to calculate return on investment from a purely financial perspective.

"If the project is strategic in nature or a government mandate, ROI calculations are limited," says Denver Health CIO Gregg Veltri tells Hospitals & Health Networks. The magazine features the tricky issue of ROI for health IT in its June issue.

Instead, some IT and clinical leaders professionals say, expand the focus to include clinical benefits of IT investments. "We should measure clinical ROI in terms of measurable impact on patient care," says Dr. John Frownfelter, CMIO for inpatient services at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit. Henry Ford was able to show that a new communication system resulted in a four-fold increase in the number of calls from the emergency department to on-call physicians answered in real time.

The University of Chicago Medical Center cut medication turn-around time by 20 percent with computerized physician order entry and eliminated 15 radiology employees within a month adopting speech recognition software, but financial ROI isn't always so clear-cut. "Our emphasis is on how well the technology will support organizational goals and strategic initiatives," David Miller, executive director of application systems, explains.

Baptist Memorial Health Care, based in Memphis, Tenn., originally planned on installing an EMR in only six of its 14 hospitals, but expanded the project to all inpatient facilities, thanks to competitive pressures. "While cost is a factor, improved patient safety guided this decision," Robert Gordon, executive VP and chief administrative officer, said.

For more examples of non-financial ROI:
- read this "Most Wired" feature in Hospitals & Health Networks

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