Supplier organizations and payers are boosting their funding in AI, cybersecurity, and different IT areas, in accordance with a examine launched by Bain & Co. and KLAS Analysis.
The survey of some 150 U.S. healthcare supplier and payer executives finds 75% have elevated IT investments over the previous yr.
The examine finds suppliers are focusing IT spending on IT infrastructure and providers, equivalent to cybersecurity, scientific workflow optimization, information platforms and interoperability, and income cycle administration (RCM). IT infrastructure and providers emerged as a prime precedence as suppliers search to strengthen cybersecurity to mitigate the danger and affect of assaults and enhance the mixing of present IT functions. These efforts have been amplified by the Change Healthcare incident, which highlighted the significance of sturdy cybersecurity measures. Price administration and EHR integration and programs interoperability stay supplier IT ache factors.
Payer organizations are prioritizing IT investments in care coordination and utilization administration in addition to in claims processing and funds. The examine discovered payers are investing in supplier cost instruments, modernizing their core administrative processing system infrastructure, and buying extra cost integrity options.
Greater than 65% of payers cite legacy know-how as a key downside. Getting older infrastructure limits scalability and adaptability; sustaining these programs imposes important value. Whereas legacy tech has been a long-standing subject for payers, important system modernization entails a multiyear effort and poses operational threat that many chief data officers are loath to imagine.
Cybersecurity has emerged as an crucial for payers as effectively, with IT leaders citing cybersecurity as a motive for elevated know-how funding.
“Payers and suppliers are persevering with to position a premium on know-how, a sentiment that has grow to be more and more true within the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic,” mentioned Eric Berger, associate in Bain & Co.’s Healthcare & Life Sciences and Personal Fairness apply, in an announcement. “Whereas the concentrate on ROI has elevated, we’re additionally discovering these organizations are extra inclined to experiment with know-how, particularly with superior options, equivalent to AI and pure language processing, to enhance outcomes.”
“The necessity is there,” added Adam Gale, CEO of KLAS Analysis, in an announcement. “Suppliers and payers are making it clear that there are large alternatives for distributors who’re dedicated to offering modern, safe, and dependable options that drive actual outcomes and might present an actual ROI.”
About 15% of suppliers within the survey say they’ve an AI technique at this time, up from simply 5% in 2023. Roughly 25% of payers say they’ve a longtime AI technique in 2024. A wholesome majority of each kinds of organizations are optimistic about implementing generative AI. Nonetheless, regardless of its potential, a number of obstacles hinder extra widespread adoption of AI. Suppliers and payers cite regulatory and authorized issues, value, and accuracy as major hurdles to implementation.
