What's Your Return On Investment?

Consider this: $1 invested in the market in 1909 would have accrued to $23.58 by 2009.

Nice bang for the buck, though it would have taken 100 years to achieve. Hospital IT purchases today often measure in the millions of dollars. A Cerner hospital recently decided to acquire an additional PowerChart module, which, with add-ons, cost $4.5 million. For one hospital system to completely rip-and-replace with Epic, they were looking at a $20-30 million investment. Another hospital executive considered similar numbers with a possible Eclipsys SCM implementation.

Given that the ROI for purchases like these aren’t only measured in dollars, what are your expectations, in terms of outcomes, for a major implementation? What are the goals and numbers you hope to get out of such projects?