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Budget cuts are nothing new in healthcare. Who amongst us hasn’t had to tighten their belt from time to time? Starting in 2027 though it seems like that belt is becoming a tourniquet with the announcement of $880 Billion cuts to Medicaid which will send ripples throughout all aspects of our industry. In and of itself it’s a number beyond human comprehension, but it’s not the number any one person, department, or organization will have to wrestle with. The only thing we know for sure right now is that each of those levels is going to have to learn to deal with less.
Years ago, I was talking with a friend of mine that was a Nurse/Technology leader at a hospital that that had gone through financial distress but was coming out the other side. There was talk of shutting down or selling to another system at different points, but they turned things around. I asked him how they accomplished this seeming miracle and his answer always stuck with me, “You know, we learned to do less with less.”
Technology is often promising that you can do more with less which sounds great, but it’s the rare innovation that results in fewer expenditures over the long term. We should absolutely pursue A.I. in targeted ways that make sense, but it is not going to magically fix that gaping hole where a budget used to be. Technology is also not a core function for most healthcare organizations so it’s a prime target for cuts. In a very short period of time each organization’s technology department will have to learn to do less with less.
The overarching advice that you’re going to read over the next few months will boil down to: “Concentrate your spending on things with a high ROI.” And sure, that’s a great philosophy, but how do you ensure at the outset of an initiative that you’ll get a return on your investment? And what return are you looking for? Financial? Operational? Health outcomes?
In this series of articles, my colleagues and I are going to talk about ways to do just that. We’re going to talk about how you identify the work that needs to be done, how you gather data on your progress, and then with those inputs how you prioritize one effort over another when you have limited resources.
