Technology in health care istricky.

Experts acknowledge the incredible potential that new technologyoffers, but because of the sensitive nature of the field, leaderscan be reluctant to implement the newest technology for fear thatthe learning curve or malfunctions will prove more harmful thanhelpful in the beginning.

Electronic healthrecords are a great example. Everybody seems toagree, to a certain extent, that doctors can’t continue to rely onpaper records forever, and that ideally records would be stored andshared electronically.

But the implementation of electronic health records has not gonesmoothly everywhere, and in many cases hospitals have expressedfrustration with federal policies that push them to adoptelectronic health records.

Similarly, a recent survey of 136 hospital executives by SaltLake City-based health IT company HealthCatalyst found that 80 percent said they believe that predictive analytics coulddramatically improve performance. And yet, less than a third of thesame leaders have overseen such a system for more than a year.

Fourteen percent say they plan to adopt such technology in thenext year, while another 38 percent suggested they would do it inthe next three years.

About a fifth of respondents say they have no plans to everadopt greater analytics technology, while 11 percent say theyaren’t sure what they would do.

Drawing on data from electronic health records to prevent healthdeclines among patients was the top benefit of analytics cited bythe hospital executives. Many also said that analytics could alsohelp hospitals predict the cost of treating a patient and theprobability that patients will be able to pay for their care.

Recognizing the benefit of technology and putting it in placeare two distinct stages of medical progress, however. The samehospital leaders who identify analytics as important note a numberof challenges that make it difficult to bring in the newtechnology.

Roughly a third of the leaders said that the top obstacle toimplementation was a lack of “appropriate data or tools andinfrastructure.” The next most common challenges were a “lack ofpeople or skills” or a lack of support from higher-ups orbudget.