A healthcare industry association projects that hospitals will spend more than $14 billion on information technology systems during the next five years, but it said capital outlays will remain relatively flat until stimulus-related funding kicks in.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) discussed hospital spending trends June 16, based on the group’s tracking of more than 5,000 U.S. hospitals. HIMSS pegged hospital outlays, impacted by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, at $14.4 billion through 2014. Expenditures on systems such as electronic medical records, computerized practitioner order entry and clinical decision support is expected to hit $1.7 billion this year.
Mike Davis, executive vice president of HIMSS Analytics, suggested hospitals face a constrained funding environment in the near term. He said banks are still not lending to the hospitals he’s encountered, including those that have submitted business plans based on ARRA. In addition, hospital endowment funds, a source of funding for capital acquisitions, have lost 20 percent to 30 percent of their value in some cases, he said.
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