Healthcare providers are now able to reach a wider audience and raise awareness of the services offered by their organizations. Purchasing pharmaceuticals online promises to protect privacy, increase convenience and decrease cost. Patients diagnosed with a rare disease can now quickly find and communicate with other sufferers to share advice and support. Healthcare executives can network and exchange information with their peers. Clinicians can access the latest medical news online, increasing their knowledge base and decision making capabilities.
Pharmaceutical companies can more efficiently connect with a large and growing market.
Other obvious benefits include the elimination of paper processing and the reduction of human intervention. Also valuable to the healthcare community is the increased availability of information such as provider and consumer demographics, health plan affiliations, physician credentials, patient satisfaction results, clinical trial participation, and drug utilization patterns. In addition to such positive aspects of electronic linkage, there may be more compelling reasons for healthcare's Web-based rush. To underscore an earlier point, the Internet is the most logical solution for bringing congruence to a hodgepodge of technologically diverse healthcare information. Pioneers on the Electronic Frontier Predicting the future is never easy, especially during times of rapid change.