…and Out of Shape
A survey, from Black Book’s “What’s Hot and What’s Not in Healthcare IT Investments”
A recent survey from Black Book Research found underperforming IT healthcare implementations contribute to losses of more than $8 billion annually. The staggering financial losses represent a significant jump from the $1.7 billion losses reported by US hospitals in 2017, but one that makes sense given the rapid digitalization and virtualization projects transforming the healthcare industry in recent years.
The survey, part of Black Book’s “What’s Hot and What’s Not in Healthcare IT Investments” report, features feedback from more than 900 healthcare professionals who worked at healthcare facilities. All respondents said their organizations suffered financial losses, workflow disruptions, and reputational damage due to bad experiences with software or outsourcing initiatives within the last decade.
Cost and Complexity Threaten Well-Being
Among the leading causes of financial losses healthcare technology professionals cited operational inefficiencies, cybersecurity breaches and recovery costs, increased administrative burdens and delays in providing patient care. When asked to name the primary reasons for the failure of IT systems:
- 48% cited a poor user experience that lead to burnout and inefficiencies
- 24% named interoperability issues across disparate platforms that result in data silos
- 20% blamed high costs in general
Given the impact of these issues on businesses and patients alike, the scariest finding of all might be that:
Risk Factors Outpace Healthcare IT Budgets
Doug Brown, President of Black Book notes, “Three-quarters of IT leaders surveyed indicated that they have no plans to allocate funds for replacing flawed systems in 2025.” Noting these findings reflect a disheartening trend of financial constraints across the sector, Brown added that 60% of respondents worried the lack the capital needed to resolve critical system issues even through 2027.
In healthcare, one of the few industries where the stakes for performance truly might be ‘life and death,’ uncertainty around new investments pose serious risk on multiple levels. For starters, a perennial lack of funds—and faith—can delay adoption of transformative technologies such as AI that would free and equip professionals to take on more patients.
“CIOs are understandably cautious about replacing underperforming systems when the ROI is uncertain, given the track record of many healthcare IT vendors failing to meet expectations,” Brown says. “Without clear evidence that a new investment will deliver tangible financial or operational improvements, justifying the expense becomes challenging.”
Making matters worse, investments in emerging technologies that were supposed to resolve issues like complexity and fatigue ranked among the greatest disappointments.
AI and ML Fall Short in Healthcare
While high expectations helped to shake lose some funds, investments in artificial intelligence and machine learning to date appear to have missed the mark:
85% of projects designed to automate diagnostics and treatment planning showed little to no return
96% of IT executives faced challenges with AI ROI
92% of early adopters reported AI systems were inaccurate or lacked actionability in clinical settings
Inefficient Workflows Frustrate Users and IT Alike
A vast majority of those surveyed cited issues with choppy workflows, lack of customization, and other inefficiencies leading to “click fatigue” and wasted cycles:
88% of providers that use niche patient engagement solutions cited poor EHR integration and lack of mobile features as major barriers
81% said telehealth solutions failed to integrate with Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems
79% of organizations associated outdated software and lack of automation with longer claims processing times and higher denial rates
77% of hospital systems reported poor user interfaces and limited functionality, adding to low adoption rates for patient portals and engagement platforms
Could Better Visibility Lead to Healthier Returns?
The faster modernization takes place, the more closely threat actors watch for new weaknesses to exploit. Cloud migration, remote work and patient care, and grossly understaffed security teams all contribute to potential risk within healthcare, and the cost and complexity issues highlighted in the Black Book survey only makes matters worse.
Now more than ever, maintaining better physical and virtual visibility helps to reduce unnecessary spending, avoid fatigue (among users and IT), and resolve issues that put performance and ROI at risk. An intuitive real-time visibility layer helps illuminate gaps in monitoring and detection that attackers love to exploit and optimize the performance of monitoring, detection, response, threat hunting, and forensics.
User experience, cybersecurity defenses, skills gaps and ROI all benefit from managing complexity and levelling silos between disparate tools, teams, and technologies as deployments scale.
