As health systems face increasing financial pressure with inflation following the COVID-19 pandemic, rising operational costs, continued labor shortages, supply chain disruptions and stock market fluctuations have combined to undermine financial stability. Many health systems are struggling to offset shrinking margins.
Purchased services from health information management and education to information systems, environmental services and maintenance support can help these costs if they are managed correctly. But they are often decentralized, managed at the department level and lack central oversight. This causes them to be difficult to track and time-consuming to improve.