Transformation of the health care industry by eMedicine: fromlow-tech low-touch to high-tech high-touch

摘要

The Physician Office Visit (POV) forms the core of health care inthe USA. We consider how eMedicine can transform this foundation ofhealth care. Can eMedicine technologies improve the efficiency of thePOV, its effectiveness, or both? In the short run, we believe that thereis a greater opportunity to improve effectiveness than to improveefficiency. In the long run, however, eMedicine technologies cantransform POV in fundamental ways so as to make the traditional POVvirtually unrecognizable. We explain how these transformations can takeplace, by examining how the physician, the office, and the visit, caneach be transformed by these technologies. We also consider thelimitations to such transformations