Healthcare CIOs Look To IT Outsourcing to Solve Talent Shortage

In the domain of managed services, change in market demand is a common occurrence. More businesses and organizations are struggling with a skills shortage that was heavily accelerated by the pandemic. However, less than half of Healthcare CIOs have a clear sense of how they should address the problem. In this complex new world, many leaders are turning to Managed Service Provider (MSP) solutions for answers.

With these frequent changes, how can Managed Service Providers (MSPs) help organizations prepare for market demands before they occur? One of the keys is understanding how US healthcare CIOs view managed services, and why they’re engaging Managed Service Providers to solve their talent shortage struggles.

”The talent war and current state of work should push more organizations to utilize managed services and other specialized consultancies. To understand where it makes sense to outsource, the IT organization must be reorganized and rethought. Each organization should have an IT executive responsible for the success of the department. Roles like product and development, or maybe a cybersecurity analyst make sense in-house. Other roles that a managed IT provider can take on include the helpdesk, procurement/onboarding, and infrastructure/networking,” said Holden Watne, Director Of Business Development at Generation IX.

Added Watne, ”If most of your infrastructure is in the cloud, it makes sense to outsource the function. There isn’t as much work to be done but there is maintenance and when a problem occurs you need that skill set. If you are migrating an on-prem server to the cloud, are you better off with your in-house team or a specialist? When evaluating options, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Oftentimes, it makes sense to have a combination of in-house and external resources. You may have a cybersecurity analyst with an outsourced SOC. It is important to have clear delineations of responsibilities.”

Prioritizing Investments in Technology

More business leaders are making it a priority to invest in technology, with many of them leveraging MSPs to manage more of their IT needs. This comes as no surprise, as most growing businesses prefer to focus more on their core functions and not the challenges that come with maintaining their own in-house IT department. 

Alexander Freund |Co-Founder, President, & CIO | 4IT, Inc.

Since Oct. of 2021, we have seen increasing interest from larger SMB and small mid-market organizations in outsourcing some or all of their infrastructure management. We have been observing an escalating talent war since the beginning of the pandemic, but as more organizations recover economically, they will likely want to make some key technology investments to accelerate their growth and resolve issues with their existing technology that were uncovered by the changes from the central office to large numbers of remote workers. As a general observation, the difficulty in hiring staff across the entire organization is also driving CIOs to make technology investments that will either increase the productivity of existing staff or eliminate the need to rehire.

Joe Cannata | Owner | Techsperts, LLC

In our forever evolving and quickly pivoting MSP space, our advantages are becoming clearer. Internal IT departments, with their limited staffing capacity and minimal exposure to systems outside what they’re used to,  often find it hard to stay on top of the latest technology and security trends. One of our advantages as an MSP is exposure to many systems and platforms across our very different clients. This gives us the knowledge and real-world experience to properly steer our clients in the right direction depending on their needs. An internal IT team may need to be trained and familiarized with a new platform, while an MSP would likely have already done multiple deployments of the same system and bring to the table real-world experience which will ultimately save time and money. 

Reducing the Loss of Time/Resources When Onboarding/Offboarding

When onboarding a new employee, there is also a risk with the investment you are making. Not only are you depending on that employee to work out, but you’re also using time and resources to train. If the person doesn’t work out, you have to put additional time and effort into offboarding.  wasted effort and 

Holden Watne | Director Of Business Development | Generation IX

Many organizations are foregoing the large office and now face difficulties with their procurement and onboarding/offboarding of employees. Why not outsource that? A managed services provider can keep track of your inventory, order devices, spend time with the new users much more easily than one internal employee. It is a task that must be done at all organizations but can be tedious if you do not have the process or people in place. If you do have in-house resources, don’t have them waste their time on this process.

Adding a Partner, and Not a Replacement

Managed service providers (MSPs) are quickly becoming the standard for outsourcing the day-to-day management responsibilities and operations of businesses of all sizes. This allows the IT staff to focus on more strategic projects and initiatives that will actually move the needle by driving revenue and business growth. 

Alexander Freund |Co-Founder, President, & CIO | 4IT, Inc.

What we have observed amongst our own clients is that the most successful CIOs recognize that their existing IT staff generally has the most knowledge of the organization’s internal processes and line-of-business applications. Having those staff members handle infrastructure management, maintenance, and Level 1 end-user support is a big waste of that knowledge, provides little room for career growth, and often increases the risk of losing the best staff members to a more attractive position elsewhere. Shifting the IT work that does not move the needle for the organization to an MSP allows for the transition of existing staff to a better career path and more rewarding project work. Many of these CIOs also discover that MSPs have better maintenance and reporting tools, are much more thorough at handling these core infrastructure and support functions, and are particularly effective for those organizations that have IT compliance requirements.

Holden Watne | Director Of Business Development | Generation IX

The helpdesk and user support are suffering. Many traditional IT organizations were built to serve an office or multiple locations. A helpdesk technician would spend his day going from desk to desk, person to person, troubleshooting different issues. It was easy for that technician to check in on users and confirm their productivity. With the advent of remote work, that same internal helpdesk technician or two cannot support the users of your organization. They do not have the processes or skillset in place to handle the different issues that will come in. Further, the volume of tickets in a remote environment is likely to increase twofold. Instead of supporting a stable, secure environment, the IT team knows how to solve problems and each home network. A managed services provider is equipped to handle the new working environment. They have become very good at supporting remote users and it is up to them to staff accordingly.