How COVID-19 is impacting hospitals' IT purchasing decisions

The coronavirus pandemic is throwing a new factor into hospitals' calculations about how to proceed with current and future healthcare IT implementations. As provider organizations face a surge of new cases, or anticipate capacity challenges in the near future, they're reconsidering the speed with which they can conduct current implementations because of limitations in IT-staff capacity and the heavy demands that high patient loads are placing on clinical staff. Looking ahead, some providers also may see future implementation efforts delayed because organizations lack the bandwidth now to support the often long and arduous process of making future purchases. However, some forms of technology – particularly those that support telehealth services – are in hot demand as they prove their worth during the national pandemic, say experts who assess information technology adoption by the nation's healthcare providers. Organizations also are looking to quickly access and use features of their current IT to enable them to better cope with the crisis.