Higher costs of care, strains from the pandemic and other economic challenges that have emerged for the healthcare industry in recent years have led many organizations to extend their IT refresh cycles. Where many organizations previously would replace aging infrastructure every three to five years, some are now trying to extend those periods to save money. However, IT experts note that putting off modernization also comes with costs.
By keeping aging IT infrastructure, healthcare organizations may limit their ability to move forward and take advantage of modern technologies and IT strategies, such as artificial intelligence tools and increased interoperability with the electronic health record. Supporting these technologies and processes with a solid IT foundation enables healthcare organizations to enhance productivity and efficiency in current clinical and operational processes, which can create a positive impact on patient outcomes and experiences.
“Hardware — especially in on-premises environments — is aging,” says Chris Gibes, a manager in the hybrid infrastructure practice at CDW. “Organizations are holding on to gear longer than they traditionally have in the past. Now, we're starting to see these refresh cycles impacting the ability of organizations to improve and bring in new applications, and it’s also creating concerns about power consumption and reliability.”
Modernization provides a path for healthcare organizations to avoid these concerns, but they must understand several key strategic considerations. Successful modernization efforts will move workloads to optimized infrastructure components and take full advantage of new technology capabilities.
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