Healthcare organizations don’t suffer from a lack of technology; they suffer from too much. From scheduling systems and patient portals to virtual care tools and cybersecurity platforms, adding tech is easy; managing it is not. The result is vendor sprawl: a costly, often invisible problem that drains budgets, burdens staff and fragments the patient's experience. The average health system manages over 1,300 vendor contracts, yet only 27% are reviewed annually (Becker’s Hospital Review). What starts as innovation quickly becomes inefficient. For healthcare leaders, reducing vendor sprawl is a strategic priority, critical to controlling costs, supporting staff, and delivering better care.
What Is Vendor Sprawl?
Vendor sprawl occurs when healthcare organizations rely on an expanding patchwork of disconnected tools and service providers to manage operations, communications, and clinical workflows. It often starts with good intentions, addressing one problem at a time with the right tools. But over time, these solutions accumulate. Costs rise, risks multiply, and integration becomes increasingly complex, especially when systems don’t communicate or overlap in functionality. This leads to redundant technology, frustrated teams, and fragmented patient experiences. So, how do you get ahead of it? Here are five critical steps every healthcare executive should be looking for to reduce vendor sprawl and reclaim control.
1. You’re Paying for the Same Functionality in Multiple Tools
It’s common for practices to use an EMR with built-in telehealth or messaging, then pay separately for third-party solutions that do the same thing.
For example…
- Are you paying for a standalone texting tool when your EMR offers patient messaging?
- Using a call center platform that duplicates scheduling functions already in your practice management system?
- Paying both a cybersecurity vendor and a backup vendor to do overlapping monitoring?
When tools aren’t reviewed holistically, redundant functionality quietly drives up costs and adds complexity. A comprehensive audit often reveals significant opportunities for consolidation and savings.
2. Your Staff Juggles Multiple Logins to Complete One Task
If checking a patient’s status means bouncing between platforms, or worse, flipping through paper notes, it’s time to take a hard look at your tech stack. These daily inefficiencies might seem small in isolation, but they add up fast. According to HIMSS, the average healthcare employee toggles between systems more than 1,100 times per day. That’s not just frustrating; it’s a drain on productivity, focus, and morale. When your systems don’t talk to each other, your staff becomes the integration layer, manually piecing together the information they need to do their jobs. That’s not sustainable. It’s a direct contributor to burnout, errors, and poor patient experiences. AI and automation offer a better path forward. Rather than relying on humans to bridge the gaps, AI-driven tools can surface the right data at the right time, streamlining workflows, reducing screen fatigue, and allowing your team to focus on care instead of clicks.
3. No One Can Tell You the Total Cost of Your Tech Stack
If your IT or finance team can't provide a clear, up-to-date breakdown of the tools in use, their associated costs, contract owners, and renewal timelines, vendor sprawl is likely draining money and resources in ways that aren’t being measured. This lack of visibility creates serious challenges across the organization. CFOs struggle to forecast accurately; CIOs can’t fully optimize the tech stack, and practice managers are left planning in the dark. Without a centralized view, strategic decisions become guesswork, and the cost of that uncertainty compounds over time.
4. Patient Experience Feels Fragmented—Because It Is
Patients notice when systems don’t talk to each other.
- They fill out forms online, only to repeat the same details at check-in.
- They call with a simple question and get transferred multiple times.
- They message through one portal, then get a follow-up from an unfamiliar number.
These disjointed moments add up. When digital tools fail to deliver a seamless experience, trust erodes, and patients walk away. In fact, over 60% of patients have switched providers due to poor experience (Accenture Digital Health Survey). Technology should simplify communication and improve access. In today’s competitive healthcare landscape, delivering a unified digital experience isn’t just good practice; it’s a strategic advantage.
5. You’ve Got Too Many Vendors—But No One Who Sees the Big Picture
When each vendor owns just a slice of your tech stack, telephony, cybersecurity, backup, scheduling, it becomes difficult to coordinate a broader strategy or spot redundancies. This often leads to:
- Security gaps between platforms
- Underused features and licenses
- Weakened negotiation power
- Missed integration opportunities
It’s like managing a relay team where no one knows who’s passing the baton. Everyone is focused on their leg of the race, but no one’s guiding the full handoff. Without someone who sees the big picture, your organization risks overspending, underperforming, and missing opportunities to unify the experience, for both patients and staff.
Consolidate, Integrate, Align
The solution isn’t to rip everything out and start from scratch, it’s to take a strategic approach to reduce tool overlap, consolidate contracts, and choose interoperable platforms that align with your workflows. It starts with auditing your current tech stack to understand what’s in use, what it costs, and where redundancies exist. From there, map each tool’s functionality to real business outcomes to determine what’s essential and what’s expendable. Benchmark pricing and contract terms across vendors to strengthen your negotiating position, and look closely for opportunities to integrate platforms, or sunset the ones that no longer serve your needs. The goal is clarity, not complexity, because when your technological ecosystem is aligned, your people can perform at their best.
Let’s Connect
The reality is, doing all of this alone can feel overwhelming, and it’s not something most healthcare leaders have time to take on without support. That’s where C3 Technology Advisors comes in. We have a team that helps you assess, consolidate, and align your technology stack, without disrupting care. If you're a healthcare leader looking to streamline your environment while improving performance, I’d love to connect with you. Whether it’s a quick coffee or an invitation to the C3 Tech Summit, our in-person event with 550+ technology and CX leaders diving into cybersecurity, secure networks, AI, and patient experience, let’s start the conversation.
