HIMSS Analytics has published the latest version of its hospital healthcare information technology (HIT) forecasting model to project industry spend from 2014 through 2019. HIMSS Analytics’ forecasting methodology uses IT expense data from the previous reporting year (2013) and projected budget data for the current reporting year (2014) as well as for future years to forecast spending over the next five years (2014 – 2019).

Patient portals typically come from the EMR vendor currently used by the organization. Indicates room for improvement, as IT executives did not display a high level of passion for their organization’s current solution. Highlights cultural issues within organizations as a major challenge to overall patient engagement initiatives.

This latest installment in the Revenue Cycle series is an expanded follow-up to the 2013 Inpatient Revenue Cycle study. Key findings include:

• An uptick in the usage of automated revenue cycle patient access solutions between 2013 and 2015,
• ​Over 70% of study respondents that use patient access solutions do so via hosted, web-based, Software as a Service (SaaS) deployment method for at least one function
• As patient portals are increasingly used to address patient access functionality, portal growth increased 15 percentage points from 2014 to 2015 

Over half of US hospitals reported use of smartphones and/or tablet computers at their facilities. 69% of respondents noted that they used apps to access clinical information; however, only 33% reportedly believe they can access most or all of the clinical systems technologies they need via smartphones/tablet computers.