Seven healthcare tech stack questions every CIO should ask

As the healthcare industry leans into technology to solve staff workload issues and increase productivity, few are talking about the elephant in the room: the complicated and unwieldy tech stack. 

Despite the advancements of the EHR and the promise of point solutions built to augment existing systems, complexity and interoperability issues remain. How can healthcare CIOs possibly hope to manage their tech stack? And with recent reports showing that there are more than 14,000 digital health ventures worldwide and nearly 3,500 healthcare AI startups in the U.S. alone, how can CIOs judge what’s real and what’s hype?

To help answer these questions, we’ve compiled a white paper diving into the key questions to ask of your current tech stack. Read below for a condensed version, or access the full white paper here.

The case for AI and automation 

To reduce the complexity of your healthcare organization’s tech stack, you need a solution that: 

• Can integrate with legacy systems
• Removes the need for additional point solutions 
• Helps you adapt to future business needs 

AI and automation have proven to offer that. These technologies transform how healthcare is delivered and managed, not by replacing the EHR and humans but by augmenting their capabilities in scalable, meaningful ways. 

Augmenting legacy systems

An AI platform solves problems and creates new ways of working that legacy systems can’t often achieve alone. When legacy systems do claim to offer scalable, meaningful change, CIOs should ask the following questions: 

1. Is the system automating manual administrative processes across the entire organization, or is the automation self-contained in a single instance of an EHR?
2. Would staying with a legacy system really streamline complex workflows or create the need for more point solutions long term to adapt to unique organizational needs?
3. What will be different about the legacy system where it can actually drive improved utilization and patient engagement?
4. Can the legacy system pull from disparate data sources to drive actionable insights?

If these questions can’t be answered with resounding confidence, then augmenting with an end-to-end AI and automation platform is likely a better solution. 

Taking the next step with automation 

After analyzing the efficacy of legacy systems, it’s best to next look internally to review your current tech stack. If you think AI and automation may be a good fit for your healthcare organization, consider a few critical questions:

1. Can your current system support the patient journey in an automated and actionable way?  
2. Can your system ensure high utilization of patient engagement across multiple modalities?
3. Do you rely on fragmented, point solutions, or are you using a unified platform capable of automating work end-to-end?

Many current systems and processes aren’t designed to meet the demands of modern healthcare organizations without relying on dozens of vendor solutions. However, purpose-built AI and automation platforms can augment EHRs to address these challenges comprehensively in one flexible solution. 

Investing in automation is no longer optional; it’s imperative for survival in a rapidly evolving landscape. For a deeper dive and the full checklist of questions to help assess your current tech stack, read the full white paper here.