Information leaders focus on HIPAA compliance.

• Position: Brief Article

Upgrading IT security to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and building systems to reduce medical errors are currently the main priorities of healthcare information professionals, according to a recent industry study.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's 13th Annual Leadership Survey indicates that 60 percent of IT leaders consider upgrading security for HIPAA compliance to be their top priority in 2002. The survey polled more than 350 IT leaders in U.S. healthcare organizations, 84 percent of those surveyed were CIOs.

Clinical information systems, which can assist in reducing medical errors, were cited by 74 percent of healthcare IT leaders as the most important application for their organizations during the next two years. Enterprise resource planning applications were cited by 58 percent of respondents as important to their organizations in the next two years. Both of the statistics indicate an increase of at least 10 percent in these healthcare areas since last year's study. Of decreasing importance is recruitment and retention of staff, which was listed as most important by 13 percent of those surveyed, down from last year's 26 percent.

Other key findings of the survey:

* Wireless, hand-held devices, data security, and voice recognition will be high-priority technologies for the next two years.

* Interest in XML and ASP technologies is expected to decline in the next two years, while use of voice recognition technology is expected to double.

* Survey response data indicates an...