Digital Health Most Wired: Health IT budgets doubled in 2024

Investment in streamlining clinical workflows

Healthcare organizations are heavily investing in organization-owned devices and automated technologies to streamline provider workflows, with a focus on voice recognition systems, such as ambient scribes. Early adopters of ambient clinical intelligence systems have reported increased efficiency and reduced clinical workload.

The authorized use of employee-owned devices such as laptops and smartphones has also significantly increased. This expansion of BYOD policies reflects a shift toward more flexible, technology-driven care environments, the report authors underscored.

Interoperability grows across community partners

EHRs are critical for supporting interoperability across hospitals, laboratories and other healthcare settings. The survey found that while emergency services agencies are lagging in EHR adoption, community partners report the greatest increase in EHR use for data exchange over the past year.

Small and midsize organizations are making progress toward implementing TEFCA standards and many are also connecting to qualified health information networks (QHINs). Notably, most healthcare organizations participating in QHINs are Epic organizations.

Continued focus on cybersecurity

Amidst the rising need for cybersecurity, healthcare organizations are increasingly appointing dedicated security executives. While there has been an increase in the number of small organizations appointing security-specific executives, over half of surveyed small organizations still rely on existing CIOs or department leaders for cybersecurity management.

Organizations are also increasingly partnering with third-party firms for threat identification and risk assessments. Further, many healthcare organizations are using AI to enhance cybersecurity, particularly for endpoints, networks and cloud environments. While organizations of all sizes are adopting AI, larger organizations are more likely to adopt AI for cloud security and identity management.

Leaders more frequently use real-time insights

Many organizations are adopting real-time dashboards and data visualization tools to allow clinical and operational leaders to make more informed decisions. Adoption of these tools is especially high for patient engagement, patient and staff safety and social determinants of health.

Additionally, across organizations of all sizes, data governance programs are maturing. About half of surveyed organizations reported having a defined strategy and leadership buy-in.

Shift to in-house telehealth

The most significant increases in technology adoption year-over-year were in patient engagement tools, according to the 2024 survey results.

Most organizations plan to continue providing telehealth services, even though the volume of telehealth visits has generally gone down since the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency. Historically, most organizations have used third-party vendors to operate their telehealth services. However, many organizations are planning to shift to in-house management of telehealth programs.

According to the report authors, this shift represents the growing permanence of telehealth, which saw rapid adoption at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beyond telehealth, organizations are adopting technologies to empower patients to take a more active role in their healthcare. Patient portal usage has increased minimally, but the way patients use portals has evolved. Patients are increasingly using portals for financial aspects of care, such as price estimation and comparison.

"The 2024 Digital Health Most Wired National Trends Report underscores the rapid shifts underway in healthcare," Russ Branzell, CHIME president and CEO, said in a press release.

"Data is evolving through generative algorithms, and the volume of unstructured data needing analysis is unprecedented," Branzell added. "Safeguarding this data is essential, and we believe this report will serve as a critical tool for benchmarking and strategic planning."

Hannah Nelson has been covering news related to health information technology and health data interoperability since 2020.