2023 symplr Compass Survey and Report
In the healthcare industry today, hospitals and health systems must contend with razor-thin margins, workforce shortages, aging populations, and seismic shifts in patient expectations.
Current healthcare business models require the balance of providing the best care to patients with the high-stakes gambit of value-based care. And, managing more with fewer resources is getting more difficult, especially with data scattered across many disparate systems and processes.
While some organizations have blazed the trail to digital transformation and operational efficiency by standardizing and integrating mission-critical systems, others are lagging. How are current healthcare workers impacted by this slow progress? To find out, we commissioned CHIME for our second annual symplr Compass Survey. The 2022 symplr Compass Survey1 provided unique insights from chief information officers (CIOs), who were all CHIME members. The 2023 symplr Compass Survey includes insights from CIOs/IT leaders and clinical leaders to delve into technology’s impact on clinicians and patient care.
Data from 200+ decision-makers at top U.S. health systems in 2022 and 2023 reveal that the disparity between the “haves” and the “have nots” of healthcare is widening, and there is an urgent need to streamline healthcare operations to improve efficiency while winning back staff. The results paint a stark picture of slow progress being made towards consolidating and integrating technology, while healthcare organizations continue to grapple with workforce shortages and tight margins. Clinicians and IT leaders agree; health systems must improve healthcare operations software NOW to give time back to clinicians and elevate patient care to new levels. Yet, communication breakdowns and lack of alignment across teams are obstructing progress toward enterprise technology, and catastrophe is brewing.
One thing is clear: IT and clinical stakeholders are not always on the same page. Teaming up could turbocharge technology transformation, support care delivery, and cut costs. It’s noteworthy that despite the gradual pace of technology consolidation and integration, there’s a notable surge in enthusiasm for increasing investment in IT solutions to tackle these challenges. According to Bain’s 2023 Healthcare Provider IT Report2, U.S. healthcare providers are significantly boosting their investments in IT and software to confront various obstacles.
In fact, nearly 80% of healthcare executives surveyed by Bain reported a substantial increase in spending over the past year, driven by the rise of new technologies, ongoing labor shortages, and mounting financial pressures. For the purpose of this report, healthcare operations are defined as the administrative, non-clinical tasks that help run a hospital or health system, including provider data management and credentialing, workforce scheduling, team-based communication, quality and compliance management, and supply chain vendor credentialing and decision support.
Every year, the gap between the number of clinicians practicing and clinicians needed to meet U.S. healthcare demand widens. According to the 2023 Health Care Workforce Scan3, the U.S. will face a physician shortage of as many as 124,000 by 2034 and will need to hire at least 200,000 nurses per year to meet increased demand and replace retiring nurses.
More than two in five active physicians will be older than 65 in the next 10 years, and there aren’t enough young people going to medical school to take their place. Attrition is here, and the workforce is not coming back. Burnout also continues to be a prominent factor driving the workforce shortage. 
In the 2023 Compass Survey, clinician burnout, staffing challenges, and nursing shortages are the #1 organizational threat over the next year, surpassing financial pressures, which was the top threat in 2022. Digging deeper into nursing difficulties, an overwhelming majority agree that managing repercussions from staff shortages (97%), recruiting nurses from outside the organization (97%), and retaining nurses (96%) are challenges for their organization.
For nurse informaticists, efficiency with technology (75%), data management (72%), and interoperability (70%) were rated as the top challenges.
In a role where proper use of technology and data are critical success factors, nursing leaders’ self-reported inefficiency with current tools and processes is a major concern.
The vast majority (84%) say their organization’s clinicians could redirect at least 10% more time to clinical care each week if their healthcare operations software were on a single platform. 
That time back could have a profound effect on patient outcomes, clinician retention, and job satisfaction. Some clinical leaders (15%) estimate they could redirect 50%+ more time to clinical care each week compared to only 2% of IT/CIO respondents.
The average projected time back for clinicians to spend with patients due to technology efficiencies was 20%. The complexity of too many disconnected processes and systems in healthcare stands in the way.
These findings are echoed by a 2023 report4 published by McKinsey & Company, in which researchers found the potential to free up 10-20% of nurses’ time through “digital approaches that automate tasks,” with the potential to close the workforce gap by up to 300,000 nurses through technology enablement and improved delegation.
84% agree that clinicians could redirect at least 10% more time to clinical care each week if their healthcare operations software were on a single platform for nurse managers, including floor supervisors and chief nursing officers, a tremendous amount of time is spent on non-value-added tasks.
These tasks include scheduling, quality outcomes reporting, payroll, peer clinical communications, and shift handoffs. 
According to a longitudinal study5 conducted by The American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL), a staggering 60-80% of nurse managers’ time is spent on recruitment, staffing, and scheduling.
Just for staffing and scheduling, many nurses use six to eight systems. Translation? Countless precious nursing hours are vanishing into the abyss of siloed software and processes. Utilizing healthcare-specific workforce management technology in an integrated manner can significantly enhance operational efficiencies.
Research conducted by Hobson & Company6 indicates that when attendance, staffing, and scheduling are automated, there is a notable 50% reduction in the time allocated to these administrative tasks. This time-saving benefit allows healthcare organizations to redirect their resources toward more valuable endeavors such as staff development, improved care delivery and streamlined coordination.
Streamlined operations equal higher workforce morale and better patient care. Visit nurses.com to see the impact of giving back time to nurses
Rising inflation, diminishing reimbursements, and increased supply and labor expenses have forced executives to seek new sources of operating efficiencies. While margins stabilized in the first quarter of 2023, most hospitals still underperformed7 mid-year, and the gap between hospitals that were thriving and those that were struggling continued to widen.
Healthcare organizations face the daunting task of navigating slim budgets while delivering beer outcomes and experiences to patients to compete with non-traditional entrants into healthcare.
According to the 2023 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Stang Report8, turnover of registered nurses (RNs) costs hospitals on average between $3.6 million and $6.5 million annually. On the national level, burnout-related turnover costs are estimated at $9 billion for nurses and $2.6 to 6.3 billion for physicians. However, nursing costs are far from the only driver of financial pressures.
Operations leaders should examine all process areas and in particular supply chain efficiencies in search of opportunities for cost reduction. “I think that putting all financial challenges solely on contract labor, which usually equates to nursing staffing, is a mistake,” said Dr. MaryBeth Kingston, EVP, chief nursing officer at Advocate Aurora Health.
“There are huge issues with supply chain costs, reimbursement, and other areas, so we need to level set within organizations. The workforce and nurse staffing challenges are a piece of the pie, but not the whole pie, and we’re going to go down the road to tackling financial issues in a way that won’t be productive if we focus only on nursing.” DR. MARYBETH KINGSTON, EVP CHIEF NURSING OFFICER AT ADVOCATE AURORA HEALTH
In response to workforce and financial threats, many health systems are materially increasing investments in new software solutions to help.
In the 2023 symplr Compass Survey, respondents identified these investments made in the last year: 
In a survey of 201 U.S. healthcare provider executives conducted in June 2023 by Bain & Company and KLAS Research2, 56% of respondents cited software and technology as one of their top three strategic priorities, compared to 34% in 2022.
Around 75% of respondents expect growth in software and technology spending to continue over the next 12 months. High rates of investment in workforce solutions reinforce that the staffing crisis grips health systems with an iron fist.
Adopting enterprise technology that enables data connectivity across roles and departments and improves clinical workflows is crucial for provider organizations to operate like well-oiled machines. For example, clinical communications solutions reduce time spent communicating and coordinating across critical teams within the organization, an increasingly difficult task with many healthcare providers juggling several floors and facilities under their watch.
Using role-based technology for collaboration, more efficient clinical workflows, and integration with EHRs and multiple systems gets the right info to the right person instantly, reducing time spent coordinating and communicating across the organization by 10%, according to Hobson & Company Research.6
Alerting a central team simultaneously, whether it involves clinical findings, notifications, or non-clinical requirements such as prepared patient rooms, results in a 5% reduction in patient length of stay and enhances the efficiency of healthcare providers.
TRUST forms the foundation of relationships and this trust is now more critical than ever in addressing the financial and staffing issues in healthcare.
Rock-solid alignment between CIOs and clinical leaders is still an aspiration, with different views on technology between roles and end users contributing to frustration and burnout. The 2023 symplr Compass Survey reveals cracks, especially when it comes to nursing and IT challenges, and priorities for change.
Information siloes and lack of communication between teams hurt both healthcare workers and patients and delay organizational progress, driving up costs and frustrations. Health systems must prioritize consensus-building across teams to ensure optimal decision-making and use of technology across the organization to make critical gains.
Nine out of 10 IT/CIO leaders say that working with disparate applications and IT systems complicates their jobs, which is significantly more than clinicians (67%). This indicates that maintaining a large disparate healthcare operations software portfolio may be even more burdensome to IT than clinicians. However, finding efficiencies without disrupting clinicians or impacting quality is where technology projects often fail.
Clinicians expressed a 50% higher likelihood of disagreement compared to IT professionals when asked about this statement: “Today, our healthcare operations software enables our organization to provide the best possible care to patients.” Furthermore, many IT leaders were unable to provide a confident response to the question at all.
This uncertainty lies at the heart of staff frustrations and contributing to burnout. Additionally, clinicians were also significantly more likely to admit that their organization has a difficult user experience for individuals working across healthcare operations software.
Overall, the differences may indicate that IT leaders lack a full perspective on the administrative burden that software can create for clinicians and the impact on care delivery.
If you talk to clinicians on the front line, they say that the further you are from the front line, the less tuned in you are to the issues that impact clinicians’ day-to-day work. In the contemporary healthcare landscape, clinicians invest an excessive amount of time navigating a complex array of technology systems, leaving them with insufficient opportunities to focus on their primary role: providing patient care, which is why they initially entered the profession.
In the KLAS Healthcare Operations Perception Report9, internal misalignment of priorities and inadequate change management practices were cited as significant barriers to achieving operational efficiency goals, demonstrating that organizations’ lack of progress is not just held back by money or staff limitations.
When clinicians and IT professionals aren’t seeing eye to eye on the top priorities and challenges for healthcare operations, how can health systems move forward—and fast— to improve efficiency, reduce burnout, and enable the best possible patient care?
Health systems are complex ecosystems. There will always be competing priorities and needs when making IT decisions, but the workforce shortage is a persistent issue that shows no signs of abating, and demographic trends suggest it will only deteriorate due to an aging population. Now is the time to leverage technology to win back staff. To do so, we need to convene the right stakeholders to make decisions that benefit the patients, the organization at large, and the clinicians.
“symplr uniquely sits at the intersection of IT, clinical, and business by managing healthcare operations. It’s not always easy to bring all these groups together for the sake of decision-making, especially when you must balance decision ownership and decision influence, but bridging the gap has tremendous value.” CIO OF CALIFORNIA-BASED HEALTH SYSTEM
Clinicians and their IT professional colleagues approach the challenges of modern healthcare differently. As IT professionals acquire new software in a valiant effort to optimize care, their clinical colleagues are taking note, but not in a good way.
Health systems must partner with technology vendors that possess the relevant connections and expertise to effectively navigate both the clinical and technology requirements of the organization.
There’s an opportunity to elevate and optimize technology and processes across healthcare operations to staunch the hemorrhage of talent and enable health systems to act on their ultimate mission: providing exceptional patient care. 
Two-thirds of clinicians say that their healthcare operations software provides a difficult user experience.
Do non-frontline healthcare workers understand the true impact of technology on clinicians? As health system leaders look towards the future, streamlining and consolidating healthcare operations technology will prepare them to thrive amid evolving, and at times, unexpected industry challenges—from slim margins and workforce shortages to the next pandemic.
“To solve the data connectivity problem, we need to have a collaborative structure where nurse leaders can consistently sit down with the chief supply chain officer, chief medical officer, and chief technology officer to talk about the data that’s driving their departments and identify where we can work together and do beer. I believe that connecting data between workforce management, credentialing, quality, and supply chain must be a top priority for hospitals and health systems to thrive, not just survive.” LINDA KNODEL, MHA, MSN, FACHE, FAAN FORMER CHIEF NURSE EXECUTIVE AT KAISER PERMANENTE AND MERCY HEALTH
According to the 2023 KLAS Healthcare Operations Perception Report9, over 90% of those surveyed reported that technology consolidation is important to their organization to improve operational efficiency.
However, only 20% of respondents say their organization’s operational strategy is sophisticated, while the remaining 80% are still in the planning or early stages. Mid- and small-sized hospitals reported having the largest gap between operational challenges to be solved and the staff and budgets to tackle those challenges.
As health systems contend with threats to their operating models, there is a growing gap between those that are successfully meeting the challenges of the healthcare industry and those that are not.
The industry shows small improvement in streamlining and minimizing software solutions within hospitals and health systems, while there is an imminent need to make operations more efficient and simpler for both IT and clinicians to manage with fewer applications and processes.
Healthcare stands on the precipice of a radical opportunity. Health systems that have not taken steps to consolidate and improve the efficiency of their operations software are weighing down providers and their ability to provide exceptional care. These health systems need to act now and emulate the success of those that are driving innovations into their organizations through IT and bridging the IT/clinical divide to enable the best possible patient care.
The 2023 symplr Compass Survey reveals that the majority (55%) of respondents still use between 50 and 500+ software solutions to run their organization’s healthcare operations. That rate declined only 5% from 2022, when 60% of leaders reported using more than 50 software solutions. Technology should enable efficiency. Yet, working with siloed point solutions and processes has an opposite effect on healthcare workers.
This year, 80% of respondents say that working with disparate IT systems complicates their job. And while our industry has made significant progress, this is only a slight decline from the 2022 (88%) results. The downstream effects of siloed point solutions include not only burnout and turnover, but also higher risk of medical errors and patient safety issues.
Healthcare workers and hospitals use too many disparate software solutions 55% of health systems and hospitals use 50+ software solutions for healthcare operations—the administrative, non-clinical tasks that help run a hospital/health system.
Despite a small reduction from 2022, health systems still manage an excess of software solutions for healthcare operations. There are many moving pieces and competing trends in the market today. According to the 2023 Bain & Company Healthcare Provider IT Report2 providers are accelerating investments in IT and seek simplified technology stacks and vendors offering broad suites. Nearly two-thirds of healthcare executives prefer fewer vendors and say they look first to existing vendors for new functionality and IT.
Increasingly, healthcare organizations look to solve clinical workflow and operational challenges, leveraging interoperability and a single partner to deliver on both clinical and IT priorities to drive efficiencies for all.
A recent Gartner survey10 also showed that the top objective of healthcare providers’ digital investments over the last two years was to “improve operational excellence.” Where to start? In the 2023 Compass Survey, the majority of leaders (84%) agree that there is an opportunity to consolidate healthcare operations software at their organization.
Starting there can achieve both IT priorities and improve clinician productivity, allowing clinicians to get back to the patient and the meaningful parts of the profession that underlie the reason they went into medicine or nursing. Health systems that delay consolidating and integrating siloed healthcare operations software may well see increased clinician dissatisfaction and turnover, impacting patient satisfaction and revenue.
The vast majority of health system employees feel hindered by disconnected IT and convoluted processes. There is an imminent need to simplify operations, streamline data-sharing, and break down communication barriers to turn survivors into thrivers, transforming those organizations currently just coping into those who truly excel.
“Those organizations that hold too tightly to traditional playbooks and are complacent in challenging historical roles and views of their purpose risk falling further behind.” PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS11
While slow progress has been made towards technology consolidation, CIOs and clinicians agree that there is a significant need to streamline healthcare operations software to improve efficiency, reduce complexity, and redirect time to patient care.
The right technology has the power to align and support both key stakeholders for the best possible care delivery and outcomes. In the face of rapidly intensifying workforce shortages and financial challenges, organizations that do not embrace the digital era and consolidate siloed software will find themselves left behind in the move towards advanced care.
For the majority of organizations that rely on 50+ software solutions for healthcare operations, sprawling solutions negatively impact clinician retention, revenue, and patient care.
On average, clinicians could devote 20% more time to patient care if their healthcare operations software was on one unified platform, with one in seven clinicians saying they could devote more than 50% more time to patient care.
Technology may not be helping as much as people think and that impacts patient quality and care and is a root cause of worker frustrations, leading to healthcare employee burnout. That’s why a large number of industry analysts advise health systems to take steps now to consolidate and improve the efficiency of their operations software that are weighing down providers and their ability to provide exceptional care while driving down costs.
Unifying siloed healthcare operations systems enables health systems to thrive in a range of areas:
In order to tackle the challenges of modern healthcare and prioritize the needs of healthcare workers as well as patients, organizations must build consensus among clinicians and IT professionals to avoid disruptions and delays.
Only then will they be able to effectively consolidate systems and leverage enterprise technology to provide better care, save clinicians’ time, improve burnout rates. and ensure operational efficiency now and in the future. The key to success lies in bringing IT and clinician leaders together and aligning their priorities to drive imminent plans into urgent action.
symplr commissioned a survey through the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME). The online survey was conducted from June-July 2023 representing 75 hospital/health system leaders, adding onto a survey of 135 hospital/health system leaders conducted in 2022.
A total of 55% of respondents to the 2023 survey were working in IT and CIO roles and 36% were working in clinical roles. The remaining 9% were working in roles that were neither clinical nor IT-focused, including supply chain manager, CEO, and director of operations. The majority of respondents were members of CHIME, an executive organization dedicated to serving CIOs, chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs), chief innovation officers (CIOs), chief digital officers (CDOs), and other senior healthcare IT leaders.
1 “From Disparate to Dynamic: Opportunities and Challenges in Healthcare Operations.” symplr. November 16, 2022.
2 “2023 Healthcare Provider IT Report: Doubling Down on Innovation” Bain & Company and KLAS. September 12, 2023.
3 “2023 Health Care Workforce Scan.” American Hospital Association. November 16, 2022.
4 “Reimagining the nursing workload: Finding time to close the workforce gap.” McKinsey & Company. May 26, 2023.
5 “Nursing Leadership Workforce Compendium.” American Organization for Nursing Leadership. 2023.
6 “Driving ROI: The Business Case for Proven Healthcare-Specific Workforce Management Solutions.” Hobson & Company. 2022.
7 “National Hospital Flash Report: July 2023.” Kaufman, Hall & Associates, LLC. July 31, 2023.
8 “2023 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Sta‑ng Report.” Nursing Solutions, Inc. March 2023.
9 “Healthcare Operations 2023: Addressing Operational Challenges through Technology.” KLAS Research. August 1, 2023.
10 “2023 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey.” Gartner. 2023.
11 “Next in health services 2023.” PricewaterhouseCoopers. 2023
