Dive Brief:
- U.S. healthcare costs are being wasted on EHR systems that are "far too expensive to operate, and they don't deliver results." Kristi Matus, athenahealth CFO and administration officer, says in a Forbes opinion piece.
- Using the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) framework to evaluate technology investments, she said, doesn't work for healthcare IT because it excludes operating expenses.
- Cloud-based platforms can cut costs associated with managing IT, contribute services and support at scale to improve overall performance, she said.
Dive Insight:
Matus provided reasons why cloud-based IT systems make sense. First, they eliminate the need for fixed asset investments and provides services that offer predictable operating expenses that scale and adapt easily to a changing industry.
By joining a network "that evolves at the pace of their needs and at times ahead of it...all of this generates great labor productivity, clinical and administrative efficiency, and improved collections," she stated.
Healthcare IT spending is expected to reach $31.3 billion in spending by 2017, Matus added, and as revenue from traditional reimbursement models dwindles, "healthcare simply cannot afford to conduct business as usual." Like other industries, healthcare needs to embrace cloud computing, she stated.