Focus: Return on Investment

This article explores the historical IT value research, discusses its applicability to IT investments in healthcare, and highlights how it is challenged by several factors unique to the healthcare industry.The integration of historical IT value research with healthcare industry attributes provides an important context for understanding why the IT value proposition in healthcare has been so elusive.The article also poses a set of guidelines, which, based on the IT value research outside of healthcare, may assist in alleviating some of the current frustration with determining the value of healthcare IT investments. Finding Value from IT Investments: Exploring the Elusive ROI in Healthcare here is much about healthcare that is unique. As Jeff Goldsmith has observed: Healthcare services are not only the prototypical knowledge business, but also are perhaps the most complex product of our economy. More variability and uncertainty at the point of service exists in healthcare than in any other service in our economy. With such “variability and uncertainty” in the healthcare business, it is not surprising that identifying a return on investment (ROI) from healthcare IT presents special challenges. Whether labeled as the search for an ROI, “benefits realization,” or “benefit/cost analysis,” the task is essentially similar: we need to understand better where we can identify and measure the value from our information technology investments.