Making a case for health tech audits: How strategic reviews unlocked innovation and efficiency

Veteran healthcare IT leader Craig Richardville on health tech audits: cut costs, improve care, and drive digital transformation.

By admin

May 29, 2025, 1:48 AM

As healthcare systems grapple with rising operational costs and pressure to modernize, many organizations face a familiar dilemma: how to fund innovation while maintaining the foundational technologies that power daily care. For longtime healthcare CIO Craig Richardville, the solution came through strategic health tech audits. These audits uncovered immediate financial savings and opened the door for strategic reinvestment in patient care, workforce enablement, and digital transformation.

Richardville’s experience, spanning three health systems, demonstrates how a well-executed audit can do far more than trim budgets. It can shift focus from maintaining legacy systems to advancing patient-centered care, telehealth expansion, and AI-powered innovation.

This case study highlights the real-world impact of comprehensive health technology audits and explores how a collaborative, non-disruptive partnership model can deliver both operational relief and strategic agility. In a landscape where every dollar counts and every decision affects patient outcomes, smart audits are not just a cost-cutting tool — they are a launchpad for long-term success.

Index of case study sections:

The challenge: Tight budgets, aging tech, innovation pressure

Healthcare organizations, particularly in rural and mid-sized communities, operate under immense pressure to modernize care delivery while controlling costs. Aging infrastructure, siloed systems, and a scarcity of IT talent can stand in the way of digital transformation. As Craig Richardville noted, foundational technologies like data centers, network architecture, and telecom services are essential, but they don’t differentiate one provider from another. Yet these are often the areas where health systems overpay or underperform due to lack of oversight or bandwidth.

“Technology has become a larger and larger part of the ‘spend’ in healthcare,” Richardville said. “So, to be able to reduce that and add value back is certainly one piece.”

Beyond operational demands, leaders are increasingly focused on advancing the patient and provider experience. Richardville emphasized the industry’s need to align with the “quadruple aim”: improving the patient experience, enhancing provider satisfaction, ensuring higher-quality outcomes, and lowering overall costs. “You touch on a lot of those,” he said of the audit process and benefits. “[It’s] bringing down the cost and allowing us to have a higher level of reliability with our network.”

At the same time, CIOs face a market that’s constantly shifting: new technologies emerge, costs escalate, and internal capacity to address it all is limited. “They are hard to find,” Richardville said of internal IT talent. “We can’t afford and educate to bring people in who have some of the expertise our partners have.”

The approach: Foundational relief and strategic redirection

The tech audit partner’s role is not to criticize or replace existing vendor relationships but to optimize them—to find hidden costs, redundant services, and opportunities for renegotiation that others may have missed. This methodology offered Richardville and his teams a high-value proposition: a no-risk, no-upfront-cost audit that required minimal disruption to internal teams.

“Every dollar that we save goes straight to the bottom line with no expense to us,” he reported.

Health tech audits allowed Richardville’s teams to focus on what differentiated their organizations, not what kept the lights on. “There’s this foundational component, which is probably what a historical CIO used to be able to do,” he said.

“Then there’s the new stuff … that is more innovative … whether you’re talking about using data, driving goals by using data, using the digital workforce that’s out there, and other digital experiences, as well as the advanced or artificial intelligence, those things will make you different,” he countered. “You have a choice. You can either lead in those, or you can follow.”

Relieving teams of foundational tasks gave them space to focus on strategic transformation. “That allows you then to turn your focus over towards some of the differentiator things, the newer items that are coming up. The best is yet to come, because the things that we don’t know about — that’s where we have to create the capacity to start focusing on.”

A typical technology audit includes a deep review of current infrastructure and spending. This involves a line-by-line examination of telecom invoices to identify billing errors, unused services, or outdated contracts; a comprehensive inventory of hardware and digital assets; and a review of current vendor agreements to explore opportunities for consolidation or improved terms. AI tools can rapidly process invoice data to flag inconsistencies, while consultants bring industry context and negotiation support. The result is not only visibility into inefficiencies but a structured path toward modern, cost-effective technology alignment.

The impact: Operational and financial wins

Richardville’s engagements with technology audits across three organizations produced measurable results. While financial impact was a key driver, the benefits extended well beyond cost savings.

Financial outcomes – In all three organizations, the audits uncovered substantial savings:

One of the nation’s leading multibillion-dollar health systems (350+ locations) saw an 18% reduction of its $18M annual telecom spend from a comprehensive telecom audit, including inventory assessment and negotiation of new vendor agreements. This also resulted in almost $2M in signing bonuses, more than $16M in gross savings over five years, a 50% increase in bandwidth, and overall improved technology across all locations and services.
A leading non-profit health system experienced a 22% reduction of its $4M annual wireless spending from an audit addressing data collection, spend optimization on user profiles, and new contract negotiations. The roughly $.9M in annual savings enabled them transition, as planned, to a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategy.
An audit and optimization for a large Colorado-based health system (100+ location) helped shave 20% or $1.4M from its $7.2M annual communication services spend. This audit helped secure almost $.4M in credits and upgrade their data network to next-gen technology — increasing bandwidth at a lower cost.

“It’s really a nice profit,” Richardville quipped, reiterating that “The dollars saved go directly to the bottom line, which is rare in healthcare.”

Operational efficiency – The audits also improved performance and service quality. His health tech audit partner, Profit Advisory Group (PAG), “brought in subject matter experts to relieve us of some of that work,” Richardville noted. “It allowed us to focus on the things that differentiate us from our competitors.”

Reducing downtime, strengthening network reliability, and ensuring smoother workflows all contributed to more efficient care. Technology audits helped uncover outdated systems and enabled faster decision-making, enhancing both patient and provider experience.

Strategic reinvestment and innovation – Health tech audits didn’t just reduce spend, they enabled progress. “Taking that data and putting it into use — that’s the future,” Richardville advised.

“We produce data, and then people make decisions on that data,” he said. “Most of healthcare has been: You go to a healthcare location. Now healthcare is delivered in your pocket. It’s where you are.”

Audits created room to explore that shift, allowing CIOs like Richardville to invest in AI, digital health platforms, and tools that make care more personal and predictive.

“Allowing [patients] to make those decisions based on the power of the data; that’s the direction we’re headed,” he added.

Richardville also emphasized that the value of technology audits goes beyond any single initiative. “Leadership is not a popularity contest,” he said. “You have to sometimes make decisions that are not the most popular. But when you make those hard decisions — and have the data to back it up — you earn credibility and trust.”

The health tech audit partnership philosophy

None of this is possible without trust and alignment between providers and their partners, Richardville emphasized. “When you look historically, vendors have been part of our solution. Now the partnership becomes more important than the vendor,” he said. “You have a shared risk. People come in together, align with a common goal, and work together as a team—not as a threat.”

The best partner-vendors earn that trust not only by delivering results, but by supporting internal teams rather than replacing them. “We’re here not to point fingers or look for problems,” said Ken Reda, Founder and Managing Partner of PAG. “We’re here to fix problems.”

That culture of collaboration was especially important given the internal resource strain many healthcare organizations face. “You really become part of that three-legged stool — you have ourselves, our partners, and our customers, all together providing that stability,” Richardville said.

Smart audits as strategic launchpads

In today’s volatile and value-driven healthcare environment, strategic audits are not a luxury; they are a necessity. As Richardville’s experience shows, the right partner can deliver immediate financial impact while laying the foundation for future innovation. From simplifying vendor relationships to optimizing networks and identifying cost-saving opportunities, these thorough health tech audits empowered multiple health systems to work smarter, not harder.

But the true power of a smart audit lies in what comes next. With foundational tech streamlined and dollars freed up, health systems can double down on what differentiates them: patient-centered innovation, workforce support, and digital transformation. In that sense, a technology audit is not just about what you save. It’s about what you can now afford to build.

As Richardville put it: “You’ve got to be fast, fluid, flexible, and focused. You’ve got to be able to pivot and move toward the opportunity.”

For rural and resource-constrained healthcare providers, that distinction could mean the difference between surviving and thriving in the years ahead.

About Profit Advisory Group

Profit Advisory Group is a nationally recognized and respected technology consulting firm based in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. Organizations representing various industries throughout the U.S. and over 100 countries have saved over a billion dollars combined by implementing our strategies. Our seasoned experts understand the complexities of managing multiple technologies and can help companies identify ways to save, introduce customized solutions that help businesses cut costs, and streamline operations. To learn more, visit our website at https://profitadvisorygroup.com. 