IS/IT: enabling medical group practices in a managed care environment

The US spends significantly more money as a percentage of GDP on health care than any other OECD country and this amount is expected to increase exponentially (S. Folland et al., 1997). In this high cost environment, two important trends have occurred: 1) the movement to managed care and 2) large investments in IS/IT (information systems/information technology). Managed care has emerged as an attempt to provide good quality, cost effective health care treatment. Yet its implications and impact, especially on medical group practices, are not well discussed in the literature. The repercussions of large investments in IS/IT on the health care sector in general and on medical group practices in particular are also largely ignored by the literature. By analyzing three different types of group practices, we investigate the impacts of these two central trends on health care in general as well as on the medical group practice in particular.