Abstract
This IDC study focuses on the investment, implementation strategies, and plans
embraced by acute care providers in Canada. The use of IT in Canadian hospitals
has increased in recent years but is still evolving from an IT portfolio that
consisted primarily of administrative and financial applications to one that
integrates clinical and administrative systems designed to address the
continuum of patient care. Acute care providers use a suite of
non-healthcare-specific applications to support the core administrative and
financial applications and a suite of healthcare-specific applications to
support the unique requirements of hospital and clinical functions.
Jan Duffy, research director, Health Industry Insights said, "Many acute care
executives recognize that existing systems are unlikely to support the changes
that are needed and that achieving a higher level of sophistication and
maturity in IT use is an important issue. IDC' s Health Industry Insights
five-stage maturity model will help hospital executives to understand the
evolution of healthcare IT, but IT vendors will need to ensure that products
and services are designed to facilitate the extensive interoperability and
integration needs of the acute care community."
|