The consulting firm McKinsey & Co. has put out new estimates that if U.S. healthcare providers could save up to $40 billion a year by adopting “a best-practice IT platform to house and share medical records, to manage hospital resources more transparently, and to define precise guidelines for medically authorized tests and procedures.” That comes in addition to the $27 billion that Medicare and Medicaid have allocated for Health IT incentives.

FierceHealthIT reports on the McKinsey report, which states: "The realization of the benefits from healthcare IT investments will require a radically new approach to IT on the part of the CIOs of healthcare providers, as well as the business leaders and clinicians those CIOs serve," McKinsey's Francois M. Laflamme, Wayne E. Pietraszek and Nilesh V. Rajadhyax write. "Healthcare providers will need to use new approaches to achieve an inclusive governance process with streamlined decision-making authority, a radically simplified IT architecture, and a megaproject-management capability."

In addition, the McKinsey report finds that the three best way to achieve these goals is through “governance with real authority,” a “radical simplification of IT architecture,” and a “well-planned implementation strategy.” Read more about the report here.

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