At issue is exactly where patients fit into the picture. As investors, patients still have a chance to cash in on the feeding frenzy. However, as recipients of medical care delivered through the electronic medium, their fate is unknown. Most experts suspect that the same technology and marketing pressures that created the competition for your Internet attention will eventually be applied to everyday medical practice. Furthermore, the first wave of this technological revolution appears to be in the realm of patient education, not medical delivery.
Most patients have more medical information at their fingertips than does the typical physician.
For most of us, simply having our patients' records in electronic form would move our practice into the new millennium overnight. Unfortunately, such an obviously useful technology isn't yet universally applicable to medical practice. The challenge before us isn't developing new technologies. Rather, it's embracing the tools already developed and employed by other knowledge- intensive sectors of our economy to improve patient care. The McGraw-Hill Companies.