Optimizing Health IT to Improve Health System Performance

Background

Despite significant investments in health information technology (IT), the technology has not yielded the intended performance effects or transformational change. We describe activities that health systems are pursuing to better leverage health IT to improve performance.

Methods

We conducted semi-structured telephone interviews with C-suite executives from 24 U.S. health systems in four states during 2017–2019 and analyzed the data using a qualitative thematic approach.

Results

Health systems reported two broad categories of activities: laying the foundation to improve performance with IT and using IT to improve performance. Within these categories, health systems were engaged in similar activities but varied greatly in their progress. The most substantial effort was devoted to the first category, which enabled rather than directly improved performance, and included consolidating to a single electronic health record (EHR) platform and common data across the health system, standardizing data elements, and standardizing care processes before using the EHR to implement them. Only after accomplishing such foundational activities were health systems able to focus on using the technology to improve performance through activities such as using data and analytics to monitor and provide feedback, improving uptake of evidence-based medicine, addressing variation and overuse, improving system-wide prevention and population health management, and making care more convenient.

Conclusions and implications

Leveraging IT to improve performance requires significant and sustained effort by health systems, in addition to significant investments in hardware and software. To accelerate change, better mechanisms for creating and disseminating best practices and providing advanced technical assistance are needed.