Realizing positive returns from your e-health investments.
Although the healthcare industry still is in the beginning stages of e-health adoption and has yet to achieve a significant return on e-health investments, healthcare organizations can anticipate increasingly positive results over time. To capitalize on the potential of e-health, financial managers need to adopt a clear, concise approach to valuing e-health investment options, making investment decisions, and managing an organization's return on invested capital. Key actions to take are developing a strategy, looking beyond cost reduction to other advantages of e-health strategies, understanding the needs of the stakeholders, becoming comfortable with experimentation, having realistic expectations, and instituting a process for valuing e-health investments that does not duplicate valuation processes for traditional information technology projects.
O'Dell
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First Consulting Group, Denver, Colorado, USA. sodell@doghouse.com
McGoldrick
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D003361:Cost Allocation; D017046:Cost Savings; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D005377:Financial Management, Hospital / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D006751:Hospital Information Systems / Q000191:economics*; D007344:Insurance Claim Reporting; D020407:Internet / Q000191:economics*; D007449:Investments / Q000191:economics*; D010934:Planning Techniques; D011682:Purchasing, Hospital; D014481:United States