Best of breed strategies--hospital characteristics associated with organizational HIT strategy.

We identify the frequency at which various IT management strategies (e.g., best of breed, best of suite, or singlevendor solutions) are pursued in U.S. hospitals. We also examine hospital characteristics that are associated with pursuing one strategy over another. After combining several secondary data sources, 3343 hospitals were analyzed. Of these, 61 percent indicated a single vendor; 29 percent indicated a best-of-suite; and 10 percent suggested a best-of-breed strategy. In multivariate models, single-vendor strategies were most common among hospitals that were small, stand-alone, for-profit, non-teaching and/or non-JCAI accredited. Best of breed strategies were most common among system affiliated and JCAHO accredited hospitals; and best-of-suite IT strategies were most common among very large, system affiliated, teaching and JCAHO-acccredited hospitals. These findings enable hospital leaders to compare strategies with their peers. Moreover, IT vendors can identify the types of hospitals that would most likely benefit from their products or services.