The Dorenfest Institute for Health Information


The Dorenfest Institute for Health Information is an innovative online resource that helps meet the academic and global demand for healthcare information technology data to improve patients care. The Dorenfest Institute provides free historical data, reports, white papers and other tools regarding the use of IT in hospitals and integrated healthcare delivery networks. The institute was created thanks to a generous donation from Sheldon I. Dorenfest, President and CEO of the Dorenfest Group in Chicago, Illinois.

Some examples of free research include:

  • Annual reports of the U.S. Hospital IT Market
  • White papers and other reports
  • The Financial Systems Hospital IT Market, 1998-2007
  • The Clinical Systems Hospital IT Market, 1998-2007

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Hospital Tax Status and HIT Buying Behaviors

Uncovering the healthcare information technology (HIT) buying patterns of U.S. hospitals is of value to an array of HIT stakeholders. Yet, aggregated buying patterns have limited applicability. U.S. hospitals are too varied to allow for the imputation of aggregate level findings to sub-segments of the market. Aggregate level findings therefore must be analyzed by known hospital segments in order to increase the utility of purchasing behavior data.

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Featured Research Report

The Dorenfest Institute white paper explores PACS technology and its relevance and importance in the US healthcare industry. PACS, or Picture Archiving and Communication Systems is comprised of workstations and servers dedicated to the storage, retrieval, distribution and presentation of digital images. The information within the PACS Report was gathered using both the Dorenfest Institute and HIMSS Analytics™ database. The PACS Report highlights some key findings relevant for the Healthcare IT industry.

  • Image distribution, through PACS will continue to spread outside of the hospital, as more procedures are performed in the outpatient setting or as technology enables users to access images outside of the hospital.
  • In 2000, 8.5% of hospitals reported PACS technology installed. In 2008, 3,928 hospitals out of 5,168 hospitals, or 76.0 percent, indicated that PACS was live in at least one modality.
  • The vendors supplying PACS technology to healthcare providers nearly doubled between 2003 to 2008. Fujifilm became the first fully Web-based PACS system, setting a trend for other vendors to follow. In 2003, 39 vendors were reported as having installations in U.S. hospitals. As recently as 2008, the number of vendors offering PACS was 67.
  • From 2000 until 2002, the PACS information was collected as a single application. Additional modalities were added to the study in 2003. The eight new modalities added were Angiography, Computed Radiography (CR), Computerized Tomography (CT), Digital Fluoroscopy (DF), Digital Radiography (DR), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Nuclear Medicine and Ultrasound (US). In 2005 Digital Mammography was added and in 2008 PACS Orthopedic technology was also added bringing the total count of PACS modalities gathered in the study to ten. By adding other modalities to the study it exemplifies the dynamic nature of the Dorenfest Institute and HIMSS Analytics databases from both a current and historical viewpoint.

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The Dorenfest Institute provides at no charge a variety of detailed historical data, reports, and white papers about information technology use in hospitals and integrated healthcare delivery networks to universities, students under university license, U.S. governments (local, state and federal), and governments of other countries that will be using the data for research purposes.

Qualified applicants have access to other resources and tools, including access to the Dorenfest 3000+ Databases™ and the Dorenfest Integrated Healthcare Delivery System Databases™ from 1986 up to two years before the current year. 

To apply for access to the free hospital data, please register.