Healthcare IT requires a special approach to planning, budgeting, and execution. Unlike regular businesses, hospitals have to deal with multiple compliance issues. That’s why they need to make sure that IT is in top shape. This involves significant expenses for internal IT departments.
An alternative option for handling healthcare IT is outsourcing. Delegating IT tasks to the company that knows exactly what a hospital needs IT-wise won’t just save time and money. It will support the hospital’s reputation and help it develop.
Let’s take a closer look at how healthcare IT outsourcing works.
Why Healthcare IT Is Complicated
IT for healthcare organizations differs from IT for retailers or other businesses. The reasons why this IT requires a special approach are:
Regulatory Compliance
The major difference between the healthcare sector and other industries is the need to adhere to strict regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Since this act regulates patient data privacy, ensuring it requires extra effort.
These compliance requirements add layers of complexity to system design, implementation, and maintenance. In most cases, this is the reason why hospitals and other healthcare organizations require larger IT departments that consist of professionals with high level of niche expertise.
Interoperability Challenges
Different healthcare systems, such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs), billing, and lab systems, often struggle to communicate with each other. This lack of interoperability leads to difficulties in sharing data across platforms. To ensure smooth communication and operations, healthcare organizations have to invest in higher-quality IT support.
With the right expertise, it’s possible to make the system run smoothly without sabotaging data quality. However, such expertise isn’t common due to healthcare being a complex niche.
Data Security Concerns
Healthcare data is highly sensitive, and it’s a prime target for cyberattacks. In 2024, the global weekly average number of cyber attacks per healthcare organization rose to 2,018. That’s a 32% rise compared to last year.
Protecting against breaches while maintaining data accessibility for authorized personnel requires sophisticated security protocols and constant monitoring. This usually has a significant effect on IT budgeting for hospitals.
Legacy Systems and Infrastructure
Many healthcare institutions still use outdated legacy systems that are difficult to integrate with newer technologies. As new technologies emerge, relying on legacy systems becomes harder and harder. Dealing with them while maintaining uptime is difficult and requires significant expertise.
Healthcare organizations that decide to migrate to new systems need a large team of experts, who can ensure a seamless transition. The costs of such an endeavor often stop the hospital management from making a positive decision.
Complex Workflow Requirements
Healthcare workflows involve multiple departments, each with its own specific processes and data needs. Designing IT systems that cater to the varied needs of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and administrative staff without causing bottlenecks adds to the complexity.
Ensuring a simple approach to all systems for healthcare workers while managing access rights is a serious challenge. One simple mistake could lead to data breaches and compliance issues.
High Volume of Data
Hospitals generate massive amounts of data, including:
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Patient records
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Imaging
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Lab results
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Insurance information
All of this data is highly valuable. To make the most out of this information, the IT team needs to take a comprehensive approach to storage and management. This requires the use of relevant tools and significant manpower. All of this translates into high IT costs.
Cutting costs while implementing high-quality data management processes is a serious challenge that many healthcare organizations struggle to address.
Frequent Policy and Technology Changes
Healthcare industry regulations and technologies evolve rapidly. Changes that healthcare IT systems need to adapt to constantly are:
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Medical practices
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Insurance models
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Government regulations
Staying on top of these adjustments is mandatory. Otherwise, it could lead to compliance and reputational issues. IT departments often lack a dedicated person who monitors changes and implements adjustments as soon as possible. This puts healthcare professionals at a disadvantage with the competition.
Need for 24/7 System Availability
Healthcare IT systems must remain operational 24/7 to ensure continuous patient care. Downtime can result in life-threatening situations, so systems must be designed for high availability. This doesn’t just call for more expensive hardware and software but also requires manpower. All of this translates into higher costs that many healthcare providers refuse to handle.
Telehealth
Today, 76% of hospitals use telemedicine to stay in contact with patients. This requires seamless implementation of secure and user-friendly platforms. The IT team doesn’t just participate in searching for the right software and installing it. IT experts must monitor it continuously to ensure smooth operation and security.
The more popular and advanced remote patient monitoring solutions become, the more challenging it is to keep them in top shape. These tools add another layer of complexity to system design.
Emerging Technologies
The healthcare industry is increasingly adopting AI, machine learning, and IoT devices. Incorporating these technologies into existing systems while ensuring safety and accuracy is a technical challenge.
In many cases, internal IT teams don’t have the time and expertise to address all of these challenges properly. This often leads to errors that cause downtime, or worse, security breaches. That’s why many hospitals and other healthcare organizations consider healthcare IT outsourcing options.
Benefits of Healthcare IT Outsourcing
Healthcare IT outsourcing may seem complicated at first. In reality, it’s an excellent way to address all the abovementioned IT challenges without breaking the bank. The main benefits of healthcare IT outsourcing for hospitals and other healthcare facilities include:
Cost Savings
Outsourcing services can reduce operational and infrastructure costs. A team of experts can handle all aspects of healthcare IT, including security, vendor management, software maintenance, and much more. Meanwhile, the existing staff can focus on decision-making and patient care.
Hiring a large IT team for a hospital can be costly and complicated. When you are outsourcing healthcare IT, you don’t need to worry about recruitment and training costs. You also don’t have to spend money on retention strategies.
Competent IT Professionals
Since healthcare IT poses many challenges, it must be handled by a competent team. A healthcare organization rarely has the time and resources to build a strong team of IT experts. This often means that some tasks aren’t handled properly while others are taken care of by non-professionals. The latter leads to low employee satisfaction rates and poor patient care.
When you outsource IT to a managed service provider, you start working with a team of competent professionals. These team members have experience in healthcare IT nuances and know exactly how to address multiple challenges associated with the industry specifics.
Enhanced Security and Compliance
Since security and compliance in healthcare IT require extra attention, hospitals often struggle to provide sufficient time and allocate a sufficient budget. As a result, they may be putting patient information at risk.
By outsourcing IT, the healthcare provider can finally have peace of mind about security and compliance. A team of experts offers cybersecurity services and stays on top of all compliance requirements. They will provide all the necessary information to make sure that the management can make the right decision.
Scalability
When a hospital grows, so do its IT needs. When such growth happens, many managers overlook the need to adjust the IT infrastructure. As a result, they either start hiring new IT team members too late or put pressure on the existing department. Both methods usually lead to errors and slow down the scaling process.
When you work with a managed IT service provider, you have an opportunity to scale at any time. The provider will offer extra assistance according to the hospital’s needs. Such scalable solutions can involve more complex software, more manpower, cloud migration, and so on.
Access to Advanced Technologies
Outsourcing providers often invest in advanced tools and technologies. This gives healthcare providers access to resources that might otherwise be out of reach financially.
Meanwhile, external IT partners know how to deploy new technologies quickly and efficiently. This can reduce the time required to introduce innovations like telemedicine advancements or complex EHR systems.
How to Outsource Healthcare IT
If you’ve decided to outsource your healthcare IT to a managed service provider, you need to follow these steps.
Step #1: Assess Your IT Needs
The first step is to understand exactly what the hospital needs assistance with IT-wise. You can begin by evaluating the existing internal resources and infrastructure in order to identify areas that need immediate attention. For example, urgent matters can include data security, EHR management, and telehealth implementation.
Next, you need to figure out what your goals are for hospital growth and development in the future. The more details you can come up with, the easier it will be to interview managed IT service providers and choose the most suitable options for your needs.
Step #2: Define Your Budget and Scope
Since you are trying to save money by outsourcing IT, you need to be clear about the budget. When setting the budget, decide whether you need full-service outsourcing or support for specific functions. This will help you understand how much you can spend.
Take the time to define the expected return on investment (ROI) of IT outsourcing. While it may be hard to determine at the beginning, you can use industry benchmarks. In most cases, the ROI of healthcare IT outsourcing is higher than the ROI of building an internal IT team.
Step #3: Research Potential Outsourcing Partners
With many managed IT service providers in the market, it may take some time to identify potential candidates. The goal is to find managed IT service providers with experience in healthcare.
Look for companies that have already worked with local hospitals that are about the same size as your own. Don’t hesitate to request recommendations. A reputable managed IT service provider will readily provide recommendations and customer reviews.
Pay attention to the pricing scheme. Do they charge per service or per month? Ideally, you should only be paying for the services you are using.
Step #4: Verify Compliance and Security Standards
Check that your potential vendors meet healthcare compliance standards such as HIPAA and HITECH. Check their security protocols, data protection policies, and approach to patient data confidentiality. You can set up interviews to discuss their offerings.
Make sure your internal IT team participates in these interviews. You need to make sure that they are on the same page as the service provider. They will be working together daily.
Step #5: Evaluate the Vendor’s Technological Capabilities
A managed IT service provider can offer you access to software that can be too costly for the hospital to handle on its own. Before signing the contract, evaluate the tech stack this company can offer.
These technologies should integrate with your systems. Otherwise, you won’t be able to benefit from everything they have to offer. Find out how the company plans to share their tech with your hospital and whether it comes with some extra costs.
Step #6: Request a Proposal
Once you narrow down suitable external vendors to around five, you can request a detailed proposal. This proposal should include services, timelines, and costs. Take the time to review the proposal to check whether it fits your initial goals and budget.
This is the time when you can negotiate a better price or higher-quality services. Use the opportunity to communicate with the company as much as possible to check whether you are a fit.
Step #7: Monitor Performance and Set Regular Review Meetings
Once services are live, your job isn’t over. Your IT team has to monitor the service provider’s performance.
Set up regular review meetings to discuss metrics, address any issues, and evaluate ongoing compliance. The vendor must provide regular reports on its progress, response times, and security measures.
Be proactive in working with the vendor to implement any necessary updates or improvements, and evaluate opportunities for optimizing costs.
Make the Most Out of Healthcare IT Outsourcing
More and more hospitals regardless of their size are turning to IT outsourcing. The multiple benefits make this decision an optimal one. Even a large in house IT team won’t be as productive and flexible as a reliable managed IT services provider.
While choosing a suitable IT outsourcing partner isn’t easy, the time you spend on the search is a huge investment in the hospital’s success.