Surprise, surprise. A new report from the Premier healthcare alliance finds that many hospital executives will make their largest capital investments in IT this year.
To prepare the report, known as the spring 2013 Economic Outlook, Premier spoke with 530 survey respondents, most of whom were hospital leaders. Survey respondents also included materials and practice area managers, reports iHealthBeat.
Roughly 43 percent of respondents said that their health organization’s biggest capital investment over the next year would be in health IT, a jump of 21 percent from two years ago. Offering a hint on where the money may be going, the report also found that 32 percent of respondents can’t currently share data across the continuum of care.
Other clues as to where the spending is going come from the study’s topline finding, which predicts a big shift from inpatient to outpatient care.
According to Premier, only 35 percent of respondents are expecting to see an increase in inpatient spending this year as compared to 2012, down 30 percent from predictions made last year. Meanwhile, 69 percent of respondents said they expect to see an increase in 2013 outpatient volume compared to last year.
Some additional intelligence from the report:
* 22 percent of respondents are in an ACO, and 55 percent plan to be by the end of next year
* 27 percent don’t have plans to pursue the ACO model, and may look to bundled payment, care management fees or pay for performance options
* 29 percent said overutilization of products and services and 22 percent said lack of clinical coordination were the biggest drivers of healthcare costs
* 48 percent said reimbursement cuts had the biggest impact on their health systems
* 40 percent said capital spending would increase over the next 12 months as compared with the previous year
* Almost 37 percent project a capital spending decrease
