New research from the New York City-based Black Book Research, a research firm, indicates that clinical decision support (CDS) tools will be the highest prioritized system acquisition of hospital IT leaders over the next year. For the survey Black Book surveyed 1340 IT and clinical leaders from hospitals, ACOs, managed care, pharmaceutical manufacturers and physician practices, which found that CDS systems are rapidly growing to improve diagnostic decisions and improve costs.

According to the research, 84 percent of those provider organizations without CDS systems in place currently plan to acquire at least one critical analytics tool within the year.

For those who have already invested in a CDS system, vendors in the industry have overwhelmingly won over their constituents. Eighty-nine percent implemented clinical decision support tools to prevent medication errors, 77 percent achieved anticipated cost savings from analytics-driven patient care and 69 percent noted improvements in studied population health. Every single ACO that was surveyed had confirmed the need for a critical evidence-based CDS system.

"ACOs, payers and pharmaceutical companies are leading the surge to gather analytic tools to improve clinician efficiency", Douglas Brown, senior partner of Black Book's health IT market research practice, said in a statement. "CDS vendors can expect their greatest number of provider procurements from community hospitals with two hundred or fewer beds where only 9% of feel technologically equipped for the reforming healthcare enviroment (compared to 62% of larger hospitals)."

There is also a question of acquiring the right talent to go with the growth of CDS systems. Eight-nine percent of organizations acquiring a CDS system plan on boosting their technology staff numbers but almost all (97 percent) anticipate a shortage of qualified external and internal candidates.