Financial evaluation should:

Financial evaluation should:

• A. Have the maximum budget finalized prior to assessment and purchases of priority items conformed to that ceiling, which will not be adjusted
• B. Include both tangible and intangible costs
• C. Involve primarily clinicians working to design the system
• D. Focus on costs for stages one and two primarily

Answer: (B)

Financial evaluation should capture the full economic impact by including both tangible costs and intangible costs. Tangible costs are the obvious dollar amounts like hardware, software licenses, implementation services, maintenance, and staff time spent on deployment. Intangible costs include effects that are harder to quantify in dollars, such as disruption to clinical workflows during the transition, training burden, staff morale, opportunity costs from time spent learning versus delivering care, downtime risks, and potential impacts on patient experience and safety. Considering both types gives a more accurate picture of total investment and potential return, supporting better budgeting, risk assessment, and decision-making about whether to proceed, modify, or defer a project. Setting a fixed maximum budget before fully evaluating costs can mislead decisions by ignoring emerging costs or savings uncovered during analysis. Relying primarily on clinicians to design the system may ensure clinical relevance but misses essential financial and operational perspectives. Focusing only on costs of the early stages neglects ongoing and future costs and benefits that occur over the full lifecycle of the system.

Financial evaluation should capture the full economic impact by including both tangible costs and intangible costs. Tangible costs are the obvious dollar amounts like hardware, software licenses, implementation services, maintenance, and staff time spent on deployment. Intangible costs include effects that are harder to quantify in dollars, such as disruption to clinical workflows during the transition, training burden, staff morale, opportunity costs from time spent learning versus delivering care, downtime risks, and potential impacts on patient experience and safety. Considering both types gives a more accurate picture of total investment and potential return, supporting better budgeting, risk assessment, and decision-making about whether to proceed, modify, or defer a project.

Setting a fixed maximum budget before fully evaluating costs can mislead decisions by ignoring emerging costs or savings uncovered during analysis. Relying primarily on clinicians to design the system may ensure clinical relevance but misses essential financial and operational perspectives. Focusing only on costs of the early stages neglects ongoing and future costs and benefits that occur over the full lifecycle of the system.