Healthcare's New Cost Crisis: IT and Facilities Outpace Pharmacy

IRVING, TX – February 03, 2026 – For the first time in over a decade, prescription drugs are no longer the fastest-growing expense for American hospitals. A landmark report released today by Vizient reveals that spending on information technology and physical infrastructure is now accelerating at a faster rate, signaling a fundamental shift in the financial pressures facing the nation's healthcare system and forcing a reckoning in how hospital leaders plan their budgets.

Vizient’s Winter 2026 Spend Management Outlook projects a 2.78% overall increase in healthcare supply chain prices over the next year. But beneath that single number lies a story of deep divergence. While pharmacy price growth is moderating, costs for IT hardware, software, construction, and facilities management are surging, creating a new and complex budget battleground for hospital executives.

“This is not a uniform inflation environment,” said Carina Dolan, associate vice president at Vizient. “Some cost pressures are moderating, while others are accelerating or shifting location. The challenge for health system leaders is managing that divergence and reallocating resources accordingly.”

The New Leaders of Inflation

The report details a dramatic changing of the guard in non-labor expenses. Pharmacy price growth, long the primary driver of inflation, is projected to slow to 2.84%, down from 3.35% just six months ago. This moderation is credited to the increased adoption of cheaper biosimilar drugs and the initial effects of the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare drug price negotiations.

Meanwhile, the costs of building, maintaining, and digitizing the modern hospital are skyrocketing. The steepest projected increase is in IT hardware and software, rocketing up by 5.66%. This is closely followed by inflation in medical gases (5%), IT services (4.5%), facilities management (4.13%), and construction (3.7%).

These are not discretionary expenses. The surge in IT spending is driven by a perfect storm of urgent needs. Hospitals are racing to implement digital transformation projects, including advanced electronic health record (EHR) systems and telehealth platforms, to improve efficiency and patient care. Simultaneously, the ever-present and growing threat of cyberattacks requires massive, ongoing investment in cybersecurity. Furthermore, the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence—with some estimates suggesting 85% of health organizations are now pursuing AI initiatives—demands significant new hardware and software capabilities. These investments are now central to regulatory compliance, operational resilience, and competitive survival.

Similarly, the rising costs of facilities and construction are fueled by persistent labor shortages in skilled trades, volatile supply chains for building materials, and the critical need to upgrade aging hospital infrastructure to support new technologies and higher standards of care.

Medical Breakthroughs Reshape Care and Costs

Even as overall pharmacy inflation cools, specific medical innovations are profoundly reshaping both patient care and hospital finances. The widespread adoption of GLP-1 weight-loss medications, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, is having a dramatic ripple effect across surgical departments.

According to Vizient's data, the rise of these drugs has already contributed to a roughly 20% decline in bariatric surgery volumes since 2022. The impact may not stop there. Experts anticipate a potential long-term reduction in demand for other procedures linked to obesity, including certain orthopedic surgeries like knee replacements, hernia repairs, and some cardiac interventions. Paradoxically, this same trend may fuel a new boom, increasing demand for cosmetic and reconstructive services to address excess skin following major weight loss, forcing hospitals to re-evaluate capital planning for entirely different service lines.

At the same time, a revolution in cancer treatment known as theranostics is creating a new and capital-intensive priority. This cutting-edge approach combines diagnostic imaging with targeted radiopharmaceutical therapy, allowing doctors to both see and destroy cancer cells using the same biological mechanism. Health systems are scrambling to build out these capabilities.

Vizient's report quantifies this explosive growth: utilization of radiopharmaceuticals surged 24% between 2023 and 2024, with another 15% growth projected by the end of 2025. To meet this demand, capital investment in the necessary PET/CT and SPECT/CT imaging systems soared 42% in the last year alone, with another 24% increase expected as hospitals expand their capacity for these advanced treatments.

Navigating a Divergent Future

The era of predictable, pharmacy-led inflation is over. The key takeaway from the report is that hospital leaders can no longer rely on traditional budgeting models. The new landscape is one of stark contrasts, where costs in one department may be moderating while those in another are accelerating at an unprecedented rate.

This shift requires a more granular and agile approach to financial planning. Success will depend on a deep understanding of how specific cost pressures, new technologies like pulsed field ablation, and evolving patient care patterns are interacting. While Vizient's report focuses on supply chain inflation, other analyses from firms like PwC and WTW project even higher overall medical cost trends for 2026, citing many of the same drivers.

For health systems already navigating tight margins and workforce shortages, this divergent inflationary environment adds another layer of complexity. Effectively managing this new reality will be the defining challenge for healthcare leadership in the years to come.