The push for nationwide IT adoption in the health care industry seems to be catching on slowly, and that hasn't been lost on InformationWeek 500 health care companies. Their IT spending is climbing, up to 4% of worldwide revenue this year, from 3.5% in 2006. This is an upward trend that started in 2005, when health care's IT spending was only 3% of worldwide revenue. This year, 72% of InformationWeek 500 health care companies say they expect their total IT spending to exceed that of 2006.

And although the health care sector has long lagged other industries in IT spending, InformationWeek 500 health and medical companies are spending about 40% more than the average 2.8% of revenue being spent on IT by other companies on the list this year.

At University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, IT spending has grown over the last several years to 4.5% of worldwide revenue this year from only 2.5% four years ago. Among the medical center's highest tech priorities this year is convergence of its voice and data networks, increasing the bandwidth from 1 Gbyte to 10 Gbytes, and up to 40 Gbytes in five years. The medical center also is focused on the interoperability of applications, including its electronic medical record systems.

Says CIO Dan Drawbaugh: "We're not tiptoeing into these efforts; we're being aggressive."

All data is from InformationWeek Research survey of InformationWeek 500 executives