Health system leaders say their ability to build AI tools internally has grown significantly.
During a closed-door executive roundtable at Becker’s IT + Revenue Cycle Conference in September, participants were asked by show of hands who expected their startup purchasing and external vendor budgets to rise over the next two to three years. No hands went up. Several expected those budgets to fall.
Building comes with its own costs. One participant with vendor-side experience pointed out that hospitals with a 1% margin are considered healthy and questioned whether most could fund internal development at all. A digital leader added that standing up AI capability is expensive, and maintaining it as the technology evolves is harder still.
Meanwhile, AI ideas arrive from the C-suite, IT, clinicians, nurses and other front-line staff, and the volume is overwhelming IT teams.
This whitepaper shares how clinical, operational, informatics and marketing leaders are working through the build-or-buy decision, including:
- How governance committees screen out requests the EHR already handles
- Why patient data protection comes before any vendor evaluation
- Which capabilities leaders find easiest to build on the EHR today
- Why data, governance and finances should anchor every build-or-buy decision