Healthcare Information Technology Issues: Hospital CEO and CIO Perspectives

Healthcare Information Technology (IT) is widely regarded as a tool for improving the quality and perhaps reducing the cost of healthcare in the United States. Yet, its implementation is a continuous challenge for the healthcare industry. In this paper, we report the results of a survey distributed to CEOs and CIOs at 1400 U.S. hospitals regarding their perceptions of the key information technology (IT) issues for healthcare. Among the top ten issues, the implementation of electronic medical records is ranked the highest. Included in the top ten are issues related to: improving healthcare quality by the use of information technology; change management, privacy, security, and accuracy of electronic records; and decision support applications. We found remarkable similarity between the views of the CEOs and the CIOs, but they were also conservative and risk-averse in their entrepreneurial orientation. These results have wide implications for many stakeholders in the healthcare domain