Healthcare Insights

Hospitals with the highest IT operating budgets

Software and information technology (IT) in healthcare have proven integral to improving patient care outcomes and reducing costs. The most prolific example of healthcare IT is the electronic health record (EHR), which enables secure patient data collection and sharing between providers. Other popular platforms include computerized physician order entry (CPOE), PACS, patient portals and telehealth.

Operating budgets forecast hospital department expenditures and revenues for the coming year, including IT operating expenses. As the year goes on, hospital leaders and supply chain managers may adjust purchasing and other spending to ensure the actual budget aligns with the original projection.

What is the average hospital IT budget?

In the Definitive Healthcare HospitalView product, IT operating budget is a proprietary calculation based on a facility’s size, services and data from the Medicare Cost Report, such as hospital operating expenses.

The average IT operating expense budget across approximately 4,660 hospitals is $7.7 million. This is about 3% of the average total operating expense of $238.2 million for these hospitals.

Below is a list of the top 25 hospitals with the highest estimated IT operating budgets. The figure used for calculations is a hospital’s most recent Medicare Cost Report, which can include both 2020 and 2021 data.

Top 25 hospitals by IT operating budget

RankDefinitive IDHospital nameLocationTotal operating expensesEst. IT operating expense budgetExplore dataset
1541974NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical CenterNew York, NY$7,240,896,211 $253,431,367 Explore
22843Tisch HospitalNew York, NY$6,444,113,234 $225,543,963 Explore
33120Cleveland Clinic Main CampusCleveland, OH$6,240,384,003 $218,413,440 Explore
43742Vanderbilt University Medical CenterNashville, TN$5,356,674,083 $187,483,593 Explore
52846Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer CenterNew York, NY$4,851,823,428 $169,813,820 Explore
6588Stanford HospitalStanford, CA$4,734,759,011 $165,716,565 Explore
7273024Montefiore Hospital - Moses CampusBronx, NY$4,346,224,000 $152,117,840 Explore
81973Massachusetts General HospitalBoston, MA$4,282,515,271 $149,888,034 Explore
9560UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus HeightsSan Francisco, CA$4,575,166,953 $141,830,176 Explore
102096University HospitalAnn Arbor, MI$3,988,374,149 $139,593,095 Explore
114017University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer CenterHouston, TX$3,916,508,130 $137,077,785 Explore
121365IU Health Methodist HospitalIndianapolis, IN$3,879,662,196 $135,788,177 Explore
13873AdventHealth OrlandoOrlando, FL$3,960,690,702 $122,781,412 Explore
14731Yale New Haven HospitalNew Haven, CT$3,384,585,957 $118,460,508 Explore
15430Cedars-Sinai Medical CenterLos Angeles, CA$3,609,143,674 $111,883,454 Explore
162828Long Island Jewish Medical CenterNew Hyde Park, NY$3,160,716,052 $110,625,062 Explore
171969Brigham and Women's HospitalBoston, MA$3,141,310,329 $109,945,862 Explore
182824North Shore University HospitalManhasset, NY$2,897,840,845 $101,424,430 Explore
192837Mount Sinai Medical CenterNew York, NY$3,240,804,472 $100,464,939 Explore
201631The University of Kansas HospitalKansas City, KS$2,866,771,912 $100,337,017 Explore
211914The Johns Hopkins HospitalBaltimore, MD$2,748,969,000 $96,213,915 Explore
223571Hospital of the University of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, PA$2,696,028,871 $94,361,010 Explore
232973Duke University HospitalDurham, NC$2,672,551,167 $93,539,291 Explore
24550UC San Diego Medical Center - HillcrestSan Diego, CA$2,554,689,987 $89,414,150 Explore
256386Texas Children's HospitalHouston, TX$2,522,019,907 $88,270,697 Explore

Fig. 1 Data is from the Definitive Healthcare HospitalView product. Hospital financial data is sourced from the Medicare Cost Report with estimated IT expenditures based on proprietary calculations. Data accurate as of May 2022.

The average estimated IT operating budget for these 25 hospitals is $136.6 million. Seven of the hospitals are in New York and four are in California. Their average total operating expense is nearly $4 trillion.

Estimated IT operating expenses for New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center total over $253 million. Another New York City hospital, Tisch Hospital, has an estimated IT budget of $225 million, while Cleveland Clinic reports IT expenses of $218 million.

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