e-business means survival for health care organizations in 2010

Within the next five years, most health care organizations will communicate with suppliers, other providers, payers, regulators, and patients through the Internet. The Internet will recalibrate expectations of speed and service for patients and providers, but it also will increase accountability in which digitalized information is tracked and analyzed. The rate at which health care organizations are developing Web-based solutions is neck-snapping in the United States. As individual product lines, departments, and subsidiaries grow their own e-health businesses, organizations must decide which initiatives they must fund, which are essential to survival, and which could be financial black holes.