Stoltenberg Consulting’s Health IT Industry Outlook Survey reveals CIO plans for competitive growth despite ongoing resource strain

Hospital IT executives continue a four-year focus on talent, striving to meet evolving technological demands through workforce optimization.

PITTSBURGH, PA (October 26, 2023) — According to the 11th annual Health IT Industry Outlook Survey conducted by Stoltenberg Consulting Inc., a leading healthcare information technology consulting firm, “retaining and budgeting for qualified IT resources” stands as the greatest IT operational challenge for hospitals and health systems, receiving 44% of survey responses in 2023. For the fourth straight year, this obstacle remains top of mind for healthcare CIOs amid workforce shortages.

Faced with limited resources and increased competition for IT talent, healthcare organizations seek new staffing models to keep up with support demands. Over one-third (36%) of health IT executives identified “flexible IT staffing support to ramp up or down with real-time project demands” as the top priority where additional support is needed.

“While being asked to do more with less, health IT departments are contending with rising resource costs despite limited qualified talent pools,” Sheri Stoltenberg, president and CEO of Stoltenberg Consulting, said. “This creates added burden on current IT staff to meet advancing patient and provider technology expectations while juggling cost containment and operational consolidation initiatives.”

To contend with ongoing financial pressures, CIOs are focused on current system optimization, as evidenced by multiple survey outcomes. “Getting the most out of existing IT purchases, like the EHR or ERP system” ranked highest for IT-related financial goals at 56%, and “EHR new version upgrades and/or system(s) alignment (including consolidation)” earned the greatest IT spend focus at 28%. Both of these results have topped their respective IT investment categories for the third consecutive year.

Having received only 6% of survey responses in 2022, “Artificial Intelligence and machine learning” quickly became the top HIT industry focus in 2023 with 32% of votes, shifting from a low to high priority topic amongst executives. With potential to solve continued operational and workforce challenges, CIOs anticipate the rapid evolution and real adoption of generative AI technologies in healthcare over the next several years.

Stoltenberg Consulting surveyed healthcare CIOs — all members of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) — through a virtual survey. Survey participants represented a comprehensive spectrum of U.S. hospital facilities, including multi-hospital health systems, community hospitals, academic medical centers and ambulatory surgical facilities. This year’s report features special segments on tactics hospitals are pursuing to elicit data-driven decision making at the point of care, as well as greater value from their IT help desk programs.

For a complete look at the 2023 survey, visit stoltenberg.com.

About Stoltenberg Consulting
For over 28 years, Stoltenberg Consulting has exclusively served the healthcare industry by providing customizable IT support solutions. FlexSourcing, Stoltenberg Consulting’s three-time Best in KLAS Partial IT Outsourcing program, delivers day-one ROI through a versatile, certified health IT support workforce — including Tier 1+ help desk services — that can scale up at any time. Averaging 15 years of experience, Stoltenberg analysts are skilled in both financial and clinical EHR systems with best practice expertise for Epic, Oracle Cerner, MEDITECH, NextGen, Veradigm (Allscripts), Altera and eClinicalWorks. To see how Stoltenberg simplifies healthcare technology, visit stoltenberg.com.

Media Contacts:
Shana Tachikawa, Director of Communications
Stoltenberg Consulting
[email protected]

MacKenzie Gonnelly, Content Manager
Stoltenberg Consulting
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