Hospital ICT investments are under great pressure. More expensive software, rising personnel costs and regular lifecycle management are eating up most hospitals' ICT budgets. This threatens to bring ICT development to a standstill, warns consulting firm M&I/Partners. This threatens the transition to 'appropriate care in the right place'.
The findings are reflected in the annual benchmark conducted by M&I/Partners. The most recent edition shows that ICT costs as a percentage of turnover have remained the same at 5.7 percent for the fifth year in a row. Given the rising turnover, this means that in absolute terms more money is being spent on ICT, but de facto hospitals are cutting back on their ICT budgets. More and more has to be done from this budget, while the associated costs for licenses, maintenance, replacement and personnel are rising.
Digital goals IZA
This is all the more compelling because hospitals face major digital challenges. The Integral Care Agreement (IZA) identifies ICT as one of the most important tools for keeping healthcare accessible and affordable in the future. To achieve the intended digitization goals, however, hospitals must make additional efforts in the areas of data exchange, information security & privacy and generic facilities. The costs involved will be in addition to existing ICT spending.
Broader application of ICT
The ICT budget is already under great pressure due to rising operating costs on software in particular, rising personnel costs and regular lifecycle management. By regular lifecycle management, M&I refers to periodic upgrades to new versions and replacement of existing software and infrastructure components.
The basic requirements of software applications and infrastructure components are increasing every year. Moreover, ICT is being applied more and more broadly in hospitals. Even primary processes such as monitoring equipment and infusion pumps now have an ICT component in the form of software components and network connectivity. At most hospitals, ongoing ICT issues take up almost the entire ICT budget.
Process improvement fails to materialize
In addition to application and infrastructure landscape expansions, recent inflation is also playing a cost-increasing role. Hospitals are struggling with rising costs for energy, interest charges and healthcare staff. To cope, many hospitals are opting to reduce staff. They are also making hard choices in project implementation and innovation.
This can have detrimental consequences for digitization, M&I observes: "People then opt, for example, for a mainly 'technical implementation' of the EPD upgrade. This leaves unexploited opportunities for process improvement and optimization."
