Healthcare IT spending is not dead in Hospitals (yet)

The nice folks at NAHIT sent out a note about their new survey of about 144 CIOs that captured technology executive’s views on healthcare IT spending. The report’s key findings include (these are direct quotes from the report):

• More than half of the CFOs/VPs Finance (55%) are experiencing slight or significant delays in accessing capital and expect the financial crisis to last another 12 to 24 months.****
• CFOs/VPs Finance are delaying or lengthening timeframes for completing new facilities or facility upgrades (74%,) deferring IT equipment purchases (57%) and delaying or lengthening timeframes for implementing health IT initiatives (52%).****
• CIOs are responding by implementing longer timeframes for application projects (63%) and reducing spending on outsourced IT services (34%).****
• One-third (33%) of CFOs/VPs Finance have cut budgets while one in four (26%) has laid off staff and/or instituted a hiring freeze.****
• Almost all respondents (94%) have cut IT budgets by extending implementation time for existing projects and delaying or reducing the slate of new projects.****

It goes on to say:

“While this recession is clearly impacting IT expenditures, it is encouraging to see that there is not major slashing of IT budgets; that IT projects are being generally preserved, albeit with some slowing of pace and schedules,” says Richard Correll, president and chief executive of CHIME. “The continued support for IT investments is a clear vote of confidence and recognition of its strategic importance by senior health care leadership.”