Casting the (Inter)net [English]

By Bonnie Darves. THE VITALS Bringing healthcare transactions online offers a $200 billion to $400 billion revenue prospect for companies that are sufficiently prepared and capitalized to tap the market. Numbers like these have created a frenzy on Wall Street, and within the healthcare industry, where initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and multi-million dollar underwriting deals are occurring at a dizzying pace. But a big question still looms: If e-companies build it, will physicians use it? So far, doctors haven’t gained the efficiencies they expected from current products, says Steven B. Roth, an analyst with PriceWaterhouseCoopers. To bring them around, he says, the price of technology will have to go down, and physicians will have to be convinced, beforehand, of the benefits. "The technology is getting better. We just need to prove that the products help them, that they cut their costs and save them time," Roth says. Having tackled finance and retail, Internet entrepreneurs are chomping at the bit to fix the country's technologically challenged ...

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