By Doreen DeGroff | Mar 31, 2023
3 minute read Technology| EHR/EMR| Blog
The term technical debt, while not new, has recently been clarified and defined by McKinsey as the “off-balance-sheet accumulation of all the technology work a company needs to do in the future.” Furthermore, McKinsey’s technical debt research shows, “some 30 percent of CIOs surveyed believe that more than 20 percent of their technical budget ostensibly dedicated to new products is diverted to resolving issues related to tech debt.”
Identifying Technical Debt in Your Organization
To better understand how technical debt is impacting your organization, consider questions like these:
Forms of Technical Debt in Review
Issues also known as | Type of technical debt |
Defects | Quality debt |
Software in need of enhancement | Feature debt |
Inconsistent or poor user experience | Service or experience debt |
Lack of technical knowledge | Skill debt |
Inefficiency | Process debt |
Renegade knowledge | Documentation debt |
Reactive development | Requirements debt |
Outdated network compliance | Cybersecurity debt |
Impact of Technical Debt on Healthcare IT Priorities
A recent Cost Optimization Report by Gartner states that priority on strategic initiatives for growth and innovation combined with ensuring efficient operations with minimum resources and cost containment can ultimately lead to the presence of technical debt. And healthcare IT is not immune. In healthcare IT, organizations everywhere are facing:
Impact of Technical Debt on Healthcare IT Budgets
Tough decisions will need to be made in healthcare IT in order to optimize every penny of the budget allocated. Determining what systems to maintain and upgrade and which new purchases to make will be on the minds of every healthcare IT leadership team if it isn’t already.
Helping them decide will be figures such as these from Gartner:
Overcoming Technical Debt in Healthcare IT
There’s no reason for technical debt to win or to dominate. Resolutions do exist and there is a way out when you take the right actions for your organization. These are some considerations as healthcare IT organizations plan their path forward:
The Future of Technical Debt in Healthcare IT
We won’t overcome technical debt in healthcare IT overnight. Each entity will require a path customized for their organization’s goals, talents, and starting point. The complications are real but surmountable with awareness of the options and definition of the details. Healthcare IT can address technical debt in the big and small ways and via the short and long term means necessary to realize the vision that’s right for each organization in the field.
MEDITECH Senior Product Director, CereCore
MEDITECH Senior Product Director, CereCore
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