Top 12 Reasons Health Providers Pay too Much for IT

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | July 17, 2012

Healthcare pays more than any other industry for information technology. At least according to a new survey. 

"Our analysis shows healthcare organizations pay an average 17 percent more than that of the other 29 industries we sampled," write the authors of a paper by Net(net), which bills itself as a consultancy specializing in IT optimization, "and 33 percent more than the industry with the lowest average costs (food service).”

And that reality spans the gamut of IT, including financial applications, Microsoft desktop productivity licenses, networking equipment, servers, storage – even vertical applications specifically for healthcare from vendors including Epic, McKesson and Cerner. "The breadth of scope of this 'healthcare premium' indicates that this is not an industry-specific difference for one type of technology unique to healthcare, but rather a general premium that applies to all technology,” the authors add. And there are many reasons for this. Here, then, are the dozen that Net(net) outlined...