The Value of Incremental HIT Modernization

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
-Lao Tzu

The announcement of a new CMS ruling should really be regarded as a good thing. After all, each new regulatory requirement is intended to improve healthcare delivery and administration, which is always a worthwhile endeavor. But in practice, new CMS rulings often elicit a very different response. We rarely see healthcare leaders jumping for joy when CMS issues a new rule; instead, leaders are usually frustrated, confused, or scrambling to figure out how to remain compliant with the updated guidelines.

For some organizations, this frustration stems from an overreliance on single-use-case solutions that are narrowly designed to meet the most recent compliance requirements. These organizations can find themselves in a cycle of continuous upgrades: when regulations inevitably evolve, they have no choice but to invest in the next new solution, even if their last investment still hasn’t yielded meaningful returns.

Other organizations have the opposite problem: in a bid to reduce overhead costs, these organizations haven’t invested enough in compliance over the years. Instead, they’ve poured time and internal resources into building fully homegrown systems or bolting on DIY applications to a few core external solutions, making updates as needed in response to new regulations. Each new rule increases the total cost of modernization, and making upgrades internally creates more technical debt.

So how can executives respond to regulatory changes without overhauling their systems, incurring technical debt, or adding yet another single-function solution to their HIT infrastructure? Embracing incremental modernization is a good start.

The Benefits of Incremental HIT Modernization

Incremental HIT modernization is about taking a more strategic long-term approach to your technology investments. Whether your organization is caught in the continuous upgrade loop or facing huge modernization costs, an incremental approach offers a variety of benefits.

Reduce long-term costs

Imagine you’re shopping for winter boots. One pair is waterproof, warm, comfortable, versatile, and has a lifetime guarantee, but the price is $200. You just need something to keep your feet warm, so you opt for a pair that costs $50; unfortunately, they’re not waterproof. After a miserable winter, you decide to upgrade to a $100 pair: they’re warm, they’re waterproof, and they work great…but they don’t come with a lifetime guarantee. When those boots fall apart, you finally buy the $200 pair. It’s the right purchase—but you spent almost twice as much as you needed to.

The same concept applies to single-use-case solutions that meet an immediate and specific need but have little long-term utility. Rather than targeting solutions with a lower up-front cost, investing in the right strategic solutions will almost always save money in the long run.

Improve ROI on technology investments

In addition to reducing long-term costs, incremental modernization can help improve ROI for your technology investments. Updating one piece of your technology infrastructure at a time makes it easier to strategically address your organization’s current needs while keeping the door open for potential future use cases.

The push to incorporate FHIR® standards is a perfect opportunity to maximize your technology investments while preparing for the future, as we discussed in a recent webinar. The versatility of FHIR enables healthcare organizations to more efficiently tackle current use cases while also maintaining the necessary flexibility to incorporate new use cases as they arise in the future.

Minimize internal staff burden

Building a homegrown HIT infrastructure forces your IT team to spend most of their time on system maintenance and monitoring. Relying on purpose-built third-party solutions means other teams are constantly scrambling to familiarize themselves with yet another new application.

An incremental approach to HIT modernization provides the flexibility to plan upgrades and updates based on your team’s capacity. This approach helps prevent overburdening your IT team, allows your Operations team to be better-prepared for the next upgrade, and ensures everyone has enough bandwidth to do their best work.

Reduce implementation lift

Some healthcare leaders believe that the best way to modernize their technology infrastructure is by upgrading everything simultaneously. But you wouldn’t try to renovate all the bathrooms in your home at the same time, right?

The same principle applies to your technology infrastructure: the more new pieces you try to fit in at once, the more difficult—and more costly—the whole process becomes. An everything-at-once approach exponentially increases the burden placed on your IT team, which increases the likelihood that something will go wrong along the way.

This path can also hamper your overall organizational flexibility. What happens if one of the solutions turns out not to be the right fit? Have you identified an alternative solution? And will replacing it impact how the rest of your technology solutions operate and interact with one another? Incremental modernization helps you avoid these potential pitfalls and establish a more strategic and flexible tech stack.

Implementing one piece at a time also makes it easier to maintain a big-picture perspective. Seeing what works and what doesn’t with one upgrade can give you a clearer understanding of the features, functions, and processes needed to support successful modernization in other areas of your business.

Adopting an Incremental Approach

The definition of a modernized technology infrastructure is constantly changing in ways both imperceptible and significant. Incremental modernization can help you keep pace with those changes, but what are the keys to successful incremental modernization?

Focus on utility

Whether your organization hasn’t invested enough in modernization or has invested too much in single-use-case solutions, the focus should be on maximizing the breadth and scope of your technology investments.

Solutions that can be utilized for multiple use cases or across different operational areas, like the Edifecs FHIR Gateway platform, are more flexible and have higher ROI potential. Most importantly, they enable organizations to achieve compliance with current regulations while offering greater long-term and cross-functional utility than solutions solely designed to meet a specific mandate or regulation.

Be proactive

Too often, healthcare leaders invest reactively in solutions that address the organization’s immediate needs or the current regulatory landscape. Unfortunately, many of these solutions lack the long-term utility that would make them a worthwhile investment.

To effectively modernize incrementally, consider not only the current state of your operations and the regulatory landscape, but where and how those might evolve in the near future. What are your longer-term business objectives? Stability? Scalability? Growth? Can the solution you’re considering support them? And if those objectives or your business needs change, would the solution you’ve identified still be the ideal fit?

Bring in non-technical stakeholders

Your technical leaders are indispensable in leading your HIT modernization efforts, but non-technical stakeholders also need to be involved in the conversation. Their knowledge of the business context and operational needs can help inform your HIT modernization efforts, and they can be effective advocates in securing organizational buy-in for your strategy.

Establish your priorities

The most time-sensitive need isn’t always the most pressing one for your organization. Upgrading a system or solution might be the fastest way to meet a looming deadline for a new mandate—but if the new solution doesn’t meet your long-term needs, it might make more sense to build on your existing solution and put that money to use elsewhere. Defining your priorities and sticking to them will ensure you’re investing in solutions that align with your strategic objectives and will benefit your organization in the long run.

The key to successfully adopting an incremental approach is to remember that modernization is not an all-or-nothing proposition. By taking a strategic and forward-looking approach to improving your HIT infrastructure, your organization can more effectively navigate the ongoing evolution of the healthcare industry.