Back-office automation and process improvements have rarely been a high priority for U.S. hospitals, writes Jim McDowell, senior director for healthcare insight and industry strategy at Oracle Corp. in Phoenix.

Over the past dozen years alone, hospitals and integrated delivery networks (IDNs) have focused on everything from the Y2K problem to primary medical records system overhauls, and now the push for health information exchanges and meaningful use threatens to keep back-office systems squarely on the back burner. FierceHealthFinance