Study: Hospital execs say IT can help poor patient flow

The following is your basic vendor-driven study, but the conclusions are still hard to dispute. A new survey backed by patient flow and tracking software vendor StatCom has concluded that 89 percent of hospital execs are reporting poor patient flow at their facilities, and that most think IT solutions are the best way to address the problem.

StatCom, which interviewed more than 200 healthcare executives, found that execs saw hospital-wide patient flow systems as having the best potential to improve patient throughput, followed by emergency department trackers, bed trackers and departmental solutions.

On the other hand, hospitals are not adopting such systems whole hog. The study found that 56 percent of healthcare executives don't have a patient flow system in place, and that 94 percent are incorporating manual process improvements to boost patient flow instead. However, it also found that 67 percent expect to invest in patient-tracking technology. Other priorities mentioned included facilities expansion (43 percent) and hiring more nursing staff (35 percent).

So, with so many hospital execs suggesting that whole-hospital patient flow technology is important, why is adoption relatively low? Our guess is that it's just too expensive for many facilities.

To learn more ab out the study:
- read this Healthcare IT News piece

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