- INFRAM and INFRAM+ puts IT in the center of the strategic financial decision-making process
- It garners invaluable input and support from clinicians, executives, and administrators
- Proprietary strategic mapping correlates INFRAM results with clinical goals and provides an IT roadmap for budget and leadership consensus building
INFRAM+: More Than Just Another Assessment
In part three of our series, we look at how INFRAM+, a proprietary mapping methodology that links INFRAM results to clinical productivity, is helping IT leadership to play an important strategic role in the financial decision-making process.
Doing more with less resources seems to be the hallmark of healthcare IT for as long as we can remember. Shrinking budgets and increasing government mandates (not to mention the occasional pandemic!) are squeezing the ability of many IT leaders to get the green light for investment in new technologies. Return on investment must be demonstrable, almost immediate, and have the backing of the clinical staff.
For those health systems looking at mergers and acquisitions, technology integration can often mean the economic difference between M&A success and failure. Assessing the technical capabilities of an acquisition target is often difficult and unscientific.
HIMSS Analytics introduced the Infrastructure Adoption Model (INFRAM) two years ago in an effort to establish baseline healthcare industry standards for measuring IT stability and manageability in the areas of data center, mobility, security, collaboration, and transport. The resulting assessment report was valuable in assessing capabilities against the industry as a whole, but often fell short in providing the kind of ROI data necessary to satisfy a health system’s decision to make multi-million–dollar strategic investments.
Making the Most of INFRAM+
Pixel Health, one of the leading INFRAM consultants in the world, developed its INFRAM+ strategic mapping tool to take INFRAM assessments beyond the walls of the IT department. Clinical, administrative, and executive stakeholders are brought into the process, with proposed technical investments evaluated on their effect on achieving quadruple aim goals of enhancing the patient experience, improving population health, reducing costs, and improving the work life of doctors and nurses. In the case of new IT investment, INFRAM+ helps gain system-wide support and budgetary leverage for those initiatives.
As for M&A due diligence, the standardized process determines the ease or difficulty of absorbing technical assets while benchmarking the technology sophistication and adoption against industry peers. INFRAM+ codifies the transformation of IT infrastructure from beginning to end and lays out a step-by-step playbook for change.
INFRAM+:
- Empowers IT professionals to be a part of the care delivery team
- Provides clinicians with critical understanding and input into IT decision–making
- Establishes a roadmap that helps maximize future technology investments