Healthcare providers are increasingly looking at innovation in order to reduce costs, improve patient care and increase patient safety, according to a survey from the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) and innovation accelerator AVIA.
HIMSS and AVIA collaborated to produce the 2013 Healthcare Provider Innovation Survey, which includes 92 select U.S. hospitals, academic medical centers, children’s and ambulatory care centers in an effort to understand the current state of innovation within provider organizations. The data is not necessarily meant to be representative of the market, but rather, facilitate dialogue about what the market is doing to determine the top barriers to innovation and other findings as reported in the results, HIMSS officials say.
The survey found that cost reduction is the focal point of innovation initiatives. Almost 65 percent of respondents ranked this as their top innovation priority.
Additionally, dedicated funding for innovation exists, but amounts remain modest; 67 percent of providers reported their annual innovation budgets total under $2 million.
According to survey results, providers are making progress implementing innovative solutions specifically in areas of high importance. These include: population health management, patient follow-up, predictive analytics, clinical decision support and care coordination.
“As shown by the survey results, innovation through IT offers opportunities to improve patient care. Successful innovation in health IT calls for integrating structure, efficiency and scale both within and across care delivery settings,’” Carla Smith, executive vice president, HIMSS, said in a statement.
