Many billions of dollars have been invested in Healthcare IT at the Federal Government level over the past decade. The typical IT support or sustainment costs for Hospitals runs about 11% of their total budgets. In 2007, Healthcare sector spending rose to $2.4 trillion in the United States or the equivalent of $7900 per person (which is also about 17% of our gross domestic product). Experts project that Healthcare spending in the US will likely rise to $4.3 trillion by 2017. There are many factors which have led to the explosion of costs in Healthcare over the past several decades; they include:

• The increasing percentage of uninsured patients
• The increasing cost of Healthcare technologies
• Negative trends in Public Healthcare management, including nutrition, disease control and lack of preventative care.
• The increasing costs of pharmaceutical research and production
• The increasing pressures by various Healthcare provision profit models to maintain margins.

One of the questions that have surrounded the exploitation of technology in Healthcare is whether increased utilization of high tech capabilities unnecessarily drives costs up or somehow reduces cost through increased efficiencies or improved outcomes. Both hypotheses have been presented before, so which is it; does technology reduce or increase the cost of Healthcare provision? This question and its answer are at the heart of the business case proposition behind the adoption of Intelligent Healthcare.

We believe that technology if properly applied within the context of evolutionary Healthcare processes can and will both improve care and enhance efficiency. What has been missing until now is an overarching perspective of how all of the many technologies now utilized in Healthcare provision can be managed and exploited holistically.

There are two perspectives into Intelligent Healthcare capabilities; the first is based upon how IH can be exploited as a methodology to orchestrate the design and implementation of Healthcare IT solutions. The second perspective is based upon how those solutions developed using the IH methodology actually impact the practice of Healthcare.