| | October 20188UTLOOK HealthcareTech IN MY OPINIONEnabling IT to be a Digital Business PartnerBy Chris Akeroyd, VP & CTO, Children's HealthCost optimization is perpetually one of the top agenda items for most healthcare CIOs. Why? Because leadership and business rely on IT to enable more innovation and organizational strategy while at the same time costing less. And don't forget--all of this has to be more secure and stable. In other words, Faster, Better, Cheaper, and Secure.But cutting costs alone isn't always the perfect solution. To meet today's challenges, IT must deliver financial transparency, a continuous discipline of cost optimization focused on business outcomes, and of course, reduce costs where possible. The overarching principle to remember: don't reduce costs at the expense of IT service quality. At Children's Health in Dallas, as we strive to meet the demand for high quality solutions that are optimized for business profitability, we are taking a three-pronged approach to increase the value of IT to the business.Optimizing SpendDo you want to begin optimizing? If so, take a look at your existing overhead with vendor contracts and maintenance agreements, as these are a great place to start. Begin by tracking the annual spend for all major vendors. When you do this, you'll be amazed at how opportunities to leverage volume discounts will quickly present themselves. Armed with that knowledge, start reviewing all enterprise contract renewals for opportunities to secure the best pricing and terms--but you have to plan ahead and do the work and negotiations at least six months before expiration so that there is time to negotiate, or worst case, seek alternative solutions. Your organization may also find that by delivering applications differently, you will have a positive impact on the application's total cost of ownership (TCO). Many vendors now offer SaaS models as a low risk, low cost method for delivering the same application in a vendor-hosted environment. SaaS Chris Akeroyd
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