- Organizations consider application oversight a low priority and app portfolio knowledge is poor.
- There is no dedicated or centralized effort to manage your application portfolio so there is no single source of truth supporting and informing decision making.
- Organizations acquire more applications over time, creating redundancy, waste, and the need for additional support.
- Organizations are more vulnerable to changing markets, balanced against internal and external pressures.
- Flexibility and the ability to scale are compromised when applications are unadaptable or cannot scale.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
You can’t outsource strategy.
- Modern software options have decreased the need for organizations to have robust in-house application management capabilities. Your applications’ future and governance of the portfolio still require a centralized IT oversight to ensure the best return on investment.
Impact and Result
- Think low priority over no priority.
- Integrate these tasks into your mixed workload.
- Create an inventory built for better decision making.
- Rationalize your apps in accordance with business priorities and communicate risks on their terms.
- Create a roadmap that improves communication between those who own, manage, and support an application.
- Build your APM process fit for size.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
10.0/10
Overall Impact
10
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
St. Lukes Health System Ltd.
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
10
Hans added clarity to APM/SAM that we really needed. Well worth the hour call. Thanks!
Application Portfolio Management Foundations for Healthcare Organizations
Manage your applications to maximize organizational value.
Analyst Perspective
You can't outsource accountability.
Many organizations lack full visibility into their overall application portfolio, opting rather to focus on individual projects or application development. Inevitably, application sprawl creates process and data disparities, redundant applications, and duplication of resources and stands as a significant barrier to business agility and responsiveness. The shift from strategic investment to application maintenance creates an unnecessary constraint on innovation and value delivery. And in healthcare, there are already enough constraints as it is.
IT has an increasing need to discover and support all applications in the organization. Unmanaged and unsanctioned applications can lead to increased reputational risk. What you don't know will hurt you.
You can outsource development, you can even outsource maintenance, but you cannot, and should not, outsource accountability for the application portfolio. Organizations need a holistic dashboard of application performance and dispositions to help guide and inform planning and investment discussions.
Application portfolio management (APM) can't tell you why something is broken or how to fix it, but it is an important tool to determine if an application's value and performance are up to your standards and can help meet your future goals.
Vincent Mirabelli
Principal Research Director, Applications Delivery and Management
Info-Tech Research Group
Is this research right for you?
Research Navigation
Managing your application portfolio is essential regardless of its size or whether your software is purchased or developed in-house. Every healthcare organization must have some degree of application portfolio management (APM) to ensure that applications deliver value efficiently, and that their risk of gradual decline in technical health is appropriately limited.
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Executive Summary
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Info-Tech's Approach
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Info-Tech Insight: You can't outsource strategy.
Modern software options have decreased the need for organizations to have robust in-house application management capabilities. Your applications' future and governance of the portfolio still require a centralized IT oversight to ensure the best return on investment.
Growth and innovation are constrained by poor application management
Having more applications than an organization needs means unnecessarily high costs and additional burden on the teams who support the applications. This is often the result of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity. In the context of healthcare organizations, where costs continue to rise and profit margins are shrinking, this is added pressure the IT team cannot afford.
A poorly maintained portfolio will eventually hurt the business more than it hurts IT.
Legacy systems, complex environments, or anything that leads to a portfolio that can't adapt to changing business needs will eventually become a barrier to growing the business and accomplishing objectives.
And the blame generally falls on the IT department.
70%
of IT budget (within healthcare organizations) is allocated to supporting existing applications.
Source: Galen Health Solutions, n.d.
A hidden and inefficient application portfolio is the root cause of so many pains experienced by both IT and the business.
- Demand/Capacity Imbalance
- Overspending
- Security and Business Continuity Risk
- Delays in Delivery
- Barriers to Growth
The unique challenges of healthcare organizations
In the context of APM, healthcare organizations face many unique challenges not often shared outside their industry.
The prevalence of legacy systemsLegacy IT infrastructure can be difficult to manage and maintain, expensive to upgrade, and an attack vector for cyber threats. Integrating them with newer technologies can be a challenge and thus, not always an option. |
A complex regulatory environmentHealthcare organizations must comply with a range of regulations, such as HIPAA, which constrain or hamper their ability to adopt new technologies and change existing systems. |
Patient privacyProtecting patient privacy is a top priority in the healthcare sector. Ensuring that sensitive patient information is encrypted (at rest, in motion, and often while in use), stored, and processed securely is a major challenge. |
InteroperabilityHealthcare organizations often use multiple systems from different vendors. Ensuring that these systems can exchange information and work together seamlessly is always challenging. Vendors are moving away from interfaces toward APIs and the new FHIR standard, complicating application rationalization. |
Playing at the high stakes tablesIn healthcare, a failure in IT systems can have serious consequences, up to and including the loss of life and/or compromise of sensitive patient data. |
Resourcing constraintsThere are often budget and staffing constraints. This makes it difficult to dedicate the resources needed for APM when there are more immediate challenges. |
The ever-evolving technology landscapeThe healthcare technology landscape is constantly evolving, and healthcare organizations need to keep up with the latest developments. That means making decisions about which technologies to adopt and which to retire. |
Complicated by data storage and/or conversion requirementsDifferent jurisdictions mean different regulations, and M&A activity often results in a long tail of clinical integration. |
APM comes at a justified cost
The benefits of APM
APM identifies areas where you can reduce core spending and reinvest in innovation initiatives.
Other benefits can include:
- Fewer redundancies
- Less risk
- Less complexity
- Improved processes
- Flexibility
- Scalability
APM allows you to better understand and set the direction of your portfolio
Application Inventory
The artifact that documents and informs the business of your application portfolio.
Application Rationalization
The process of collecting information and assessing your applications to determine recommended dispositions.
Application Alignment
The process of revealing application information through interviewing stakeholders and aligning to business capabilities.
Application Roadmap
The artifact that showcases the strategic directions for your applications over a given timeline.
Application portfolio management:
The ongoing practice of:
- Providing visibility into applications across the organization.
- Recommending corrections or enhancements to decision makers.
- Aligning delivery teams on priority.
- Showcasing the direction of applications to stakeholders.
Every organization experiences some degree of application sprawl
Causes of Sprawl
- Poor Lifecycle Management
- Turnover & Lack of Knowledge Transfer
- Siloed Business Units & Decentralized IT
- Business-Managed IT (Shadow IT)
- Mergers & Acquisitions
Problems With Sprawl
- Redundancy and Inefficient Spending
- Disparate Apps & Data
- Obsolescence
- Difficulties in Prioritizing Support
- Barriers to Change & Growth
Application sprawl:
Inefficiencies within your application portfolio are created by the gradual and nonstrategic accumulation of applications.
You have more apps than you need.
Only 34% of software is rated as both important and effective by users across all industries and sectors.
34%
Source: Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision