Survey of physician attitudes towards available business services

Hospitals recognize that attracting and retaining physicians to their medical staff is the single most important means of increasing utilization. Further, the competitive environment makes it imperative for most hospitals to seriously compete for physicians' allegiance. Hospitals often have marketable business expertise and also share many of the same business problems as the physicians who are on their staff. That means that hospitals might be able to diversify their product line and strengthen their physician ties at the same time. This twofold benefit is very attractive. Business software and hardware vendors are also aware of this potential. They have come forward with packages in the data processing area to help physician and hospital computers share information. Sharing information via computer can potentially increase billing accuracy and efficiency, among other things, for the participating physicians. There have been reports of success in this area with hints that this service is attracting physicians and retaining them as medical staff members. That is exciting to hospitals looking for another way to build and maintain their medical staff.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)