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Information Technology In Healthcare
And Other Major Industry Sectors

It's universally agreed that information technology in healthcare, not to mention other major industry sectors, is extremely important. On this page, we look at it in relation to IT project outsourcing for healthcare.

Overall information technology in healthcare issues.
Pros and cons of offshore healthcare IT outsourcing.
Benefits of IT outsourcing in general.

On a related page, we address some of the specific healthcare information technology offered by IT outsourcers and how they can directly impact the healthcare system.

Before we review some of these items, let's not forget to mention the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a governing body for information technology in healthcare.

The HIPAA has established national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers.

They also address the security and privacy of health data. These standards are meant to improve the efficiency of the national healthcare system by encouraging electronic data interchange.

Some Healthcare IT Issues

Healthcare organizations not considering outsourcing and missing out of potentially significant cost savings. They may also be at a competitive disadvantage.
It's extremely important that healthcare organizations focus on what they do well and stop spending time on the things they do not do well.
When you're looking to outsource entire departments, such as IT or radiology, you need to be very aware of its effect on the morale of the rest of your organization. It really makes employees question how much their employer values their services. It also means fewer opportunities to learn from your peers and improve their skills.
One of the big reasons for looking at IT outsourcing is that IT departments often lack the tools, the infrastructure and the processes to be able to really help their organization.
That being said, often one of the first areas to be fixed is IT infrastructure, then IT services help desk.
Another major issue for IT departments is that they must provide a service to a facility that is operating 24/7 year round and it is too costly to provide in-house technical services.

Offshore Healthcare IT Outsourcing

There are advantages and disadvantages to offshore outsourcing of information technology in healthcare. Let's take a quick look at the major pros and cons.

Be wary when looking at potential healthcare offshore IT providers. Some lack the necessary healthcare domain expertise, but they are doing their best to hire professionals with healthcare domain knowledge. Many vendors are building knowledge in healthcare informatics standards.
One of the growing areas of offshore IT outsourcing is business process outsourcing, which includes insurance claims processing, adjudication, receivables management, medical transcription, billing and coding services, so make absolutely certain that these outsourcers adhere to HIPAA-compliant security policies and procedures. You may well find that some providers are lax in handling data security. Compare this to local providers who are much more stringent in following these guidelines.
Elsewhere in our coverage of best practices for selecting an IT outsourcer we suggested that you ignore the highest and lowest priced potential outsourcers. The reason for not selecting the lowest priced outsourcers is that their contracts generally carry the greatest risk.
With any major project, look into starting slow, with a pilot project that will affect 10-15 people. The duration of the pilot should be about six months.
Service Level Agreements (SLA) are extremely important and you would do well to hire someone who has healthcare knowledge to help you prepare the SLA that looks out for your best interests.
Cultural barriers, differing management styles and time zone differences can also have an impact.
A key ethical issue is whether you should inform patients that their information is being outsourced. HIPAA provides specific regulations that must be adhered to.

General Benefits of IT Outsourcing

IT outsourcing benefits many industries whether it has to do with healthcare or financial asset management systems.

Outsourcing some information technology in healthcare not directly related to patient care can deliver cost savings of 20% or more.
Of those who do outsource, 70% meet or exceed their cost saving expectations and they also see an improvement in services. So as part of your search for an IT outsourcer, talk with those that have been successful. They should be able to provide you with a great deal of useful information.
IT outsourcing salaries usually represents a saving of 30%.
With outsourcing that is done well, there is a huge increase in customer satisfaction.
IT outsourcing that is well implemented using a good SLA then has processes that are monitored and performances are measured.
Starting with a "blank slate" is beneficial because employees are usually not willing to defend systems that are not working.
Relationships where there is open communication puts together partners that are working together to find and implement the best solution.
Many organizations using information technology in healthcare find diverse functions that can be outsourced without negatively affecting the core competency of health care.
You now have key staff to operate a facility.

Specific Healthcare Information Technology

On another page we cover information technology issues specific to healthcare:

Questions to ask your potential provider.
Specific systems such as Point Of Entry (POE) systems, coding, billing and admin system improvements.

To learn more, please visit our Healthcare Information Technology page.

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