Application Rationalization: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? | Chaudry & Palis

Every health system says it wants to rationalize its application portfolio. Far fewer finish the job. Two veteran application leaders explain why decommissioning is necessary work, and why the savings often arrive smaller than the business case promised. Dr. Zafar Chaudry and Adar Palis dig into application sprawl, application rationalization, and building an application decommissioning discipline: why turning software off is harder than turning it on, why usage counts are a poor proxy for value, how legacy applications expand the cybersecurity attack surface and invite ransomware, how to build a governance committee that decides, the hidden labor cost of committee time, data archiving and retention, shadow IT, EMR-first consolidation, in-suite versus niche point solutions, change management costs, and how AI can automate governance intake. PANELISTS Zafar Chaudry, MD, Former SVP – Chief Digital Officer & Chief AI and Information Officer, Seattle Children's Adar Palis, SVP of Clinical & Revenue Cycle Applications, Providence Moderated by Anthony Guerra, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, healthsystemCIO CHAPTERS 00:00 Introductions & the state of application sprawl 06:10 In-suite vs. niche: where the risk really sits 09:21 Usage, value & who gets to decide 15:11 Building governance that produces decisions 22:00 The juice, the squeeze & the rotted lemon 36:47 IT's real role: co-sponsor, not owner 45:00 Audience Q&A: soft costs & closing the loop 54:11 Final advice from each panelist KEY THEMES AND TAKEAWAYS The bottleneck is discipline, not discovery Finding retirement candidates is the easy part; building the organizational will to actually retire them is where programs stall. Palis argues the evidence that an organization has moved beyond a tool matters more than whether it sits inside a suite or outside one (06:31). The savings math is smaller than the pitch Chaudry describes bold plans to cut 20% of the portfolio landing closer to 5% or 6% by year end, and a showback where $1 million in labor buys $200,000 in licensing savings (13:14, 45:44). Sometimes the vendor's monthly fee is simply cheaper than the cost of leaving (22:49). Usage counts are a poor proxy for value People keep logging into tools they have quietly routed around. Palis pushes leaders to measure whether an application improves clinical, operational, or financial outcomes rather than counting seats (13:47). Legacy applications are an attack surface Unpatched, forgotten niche products have become entry points for ransomware across the country, which changes rationalization from a cost exercise into a security obligation (05:17). Govern enough to decide, not enough to smother Chaudry warns that constant no's produce shadow IT — the researcher who buys a server at Costco — and that endlessly tabled decisions generate their own soft costs (28:25, 47:22). Retirement is change management with a price tag Moving three users into EMR functionality means retraining, staffing, and time. Chaudry frames the whole exercise as an invest-to-save scheme with a longer-term projection (19:57, 04:13). FINAL ADVICE Palis: Don't judge the technology by how exciting it was when you bought it — judge it by the value it's delivering today (54:42). Chaudry: 20% of any IT job is sales; you have to sell people on the alternative before they'll give up their favorite little toy (55:18). Certificate of Attendance: https://healthsystemcio.com/webinar-coa/