It's budget season. While that means it's time to plan for how much your ASC will spend on payroll, supplies and devices, it should also include your information technology (IT)-related expenses.
To get a general idea of how much you can expect to spend on IT in 2017, perform an analysis of this year's expenses. Doing so will give you a sense of how much you can expect to spend every month and throughout the year, but it's likely a rough estimate at that. Technology expenses are often inconsistent year to year, and may even significantly differ from one year to the next depending upon whether your ASC undergoes changes.
To put together as accurate of a technology budget as possible, here is a checklist of eight areas you will want to consider and, if applicable, include in your budget.
1. Capital purchases. If 2017 is the year you add an electronic health records (EHR) system or another significant IT solution to your ASC, it's important to get as good of an estimate as possible of how much the system itself will cost and costs associated with the addition. This may include installation, new hardware needed to run the new system, licenses for users and training.
2. Plans for growth. Is your ASC expanding its location or moving into a new building? Planning to add specialties, physicians or staff? Any growth your ASC experiences will likely bring with it added IT costs, such as new computers and workstations, software licenses, telecommunications (voice and data services), and cabling.
3. Security and compliance. In March, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' Office for Civil Rights (OCR) launched its next phase of HIPAA audits of covered entities and their business associates. They may serve to identify covered entities like ASCs and their business associates not in compliance with HIPAA, and is further proof that regulators are aggressively pursuing audits.
To keep your ASC out of hot water, budget for conducting at least an annual HIPAA and HITECH security risk analysis and remediation. This will help ensure protected health information is secure.
4. Disaster recovery and business continuity. An IT disaster can occur at your ASC at any time. It may be small, such as a computer used for admissions going down. It can be medium-sized, such as wireless networking going out, crippling devices that rely on a wireless signal to function. Then there are major disasters, such as if your ASC is hit by a cyberattack like ransomware that can block your ability to use technology and even wipe out financial and clinical data.
Any disaster can easily have a substantial, negative impact on finances and operations, with IT downtime costing organizations hundreds of billions of dollars every year. ASCs need a comprehensive, HIPAA-compliant disaster recovery and business continuity plan. Such a plan should identify the steps an ASC will take to recover from an IT disaster and how to maintain business continuity during and after the disaster.
If your ASC lacks a plan, it is critical to invest in and complete development of one as soon as possible. If your ASC has a plan, budget for its testing in 2017. If your ASC adds new systems next year, the plan will need to be updated accordingly and should be retested to help ensure a seamless business continuity strategy in the event of a disaster.
5. Maintenance and upgradces. Your ASC's IT systems, including EHR and practice management software, typically have maintenance costs associated with them. The costs for keeping these mission-critical solutions current generally run around 20 percent of the original licensing cost for the software.
Ask your vendors if any substantial upgrades are planned for 2017. If so, you will need to determine whether your existing hardware can support such upgrades; if it will not, factor in the cost of upgrades.
6. Contract renewals. As with any contracts your ASC signs, those pertaining to IT need to be periodically renewed. These contracts include managed services agreements, telecommunications and phone systems.
Not only do you need to budget for the costs of these contracts, but you should assess whether the contract still meets your needs or if you need to upgrade or downgrade. Note: It is best to address whether you need to change your contact prior to the renewal deadline or you may need pay a premium for changes after the fact.
7. Warranties. Your ASC's major technology equipment (e.g., servers, firewalls, switches) have warranties that expire. You will want to budget for extending/renewing those warranties that make sense (taking into consideration the age of the technology) or having a backup plan if you do not extend a warranty. This may include replacing the equipment under warranty before the warranty expires or at least developing a response plan in case equipment not under warranty fails.
8. Staff training. It's easy to focus on costs associated with purchasing hardware and software when planning an IT budget, but one area often overlooked is staff training associated with using the technology.
Effective staff training may require more than just an investment in time. Many system vendors host conferences for clients and their staff. These conferences can provide a wide range of educational opportunities, including training on current features, discussion of new features coming down the pipeline and networking with other users. Networking can provide helpful guidance not only on the use of the technology, but other areas of the ASC's operation as well.
Other technology training opportunities include webinars (some are free, while others may have a fee) and bringing in a technology consultant for on-site training. When an ASC invests in staff training for use of its IT, productivity, efficiency and even staff satisfaction tends to improve. Consider allocating some money in the budget for staff training. Even a small investment can go a long way.
Nelson Gomes is a seasoned information technology veteran who has spent the past 15-plus years specifically focused on healthcare and has more than two decades of IT experience. He is the founder of PriorityOne Group. His method of leveraging technology to help healthcare providers deliver higher-quality care while maintaining IT security has made him a sought after thought leader who is frequently called upon for his expertise by professional groups, associations and publications.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker's Hospital Review/Becker's Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.