The healthcare industry, with more than $1 trillion in revenue, represents approximately one-seventh of the U.S. economy. A significant portion of this revenue is lost due to rising health system costs. This article examines the gaps in the traditional healthcare delivery system in terms of information flow, communication standards, case collection, and IT spending. This demonstrates that e-commerce has the capacity to transact certain healthcare matters more efficiently and cost-effectively. With the Internet as a delivery platform, several models offer an improvement over the status quo. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay The Internet has created both opportunities and threats that providers of all stripes must ultimately confront to remain viable businesses in the new economy. Although business-to-business (B2B) innovations offer great hope for cost reductions and other efficiencies, connecting with patients electronically represents a particularly difficult frontier where technical hurdles are typically overwhelmed by political, legal, workflow and more. However, the rise of consumerism requires a response, centered on the needs and demands of the patient. Consumerism has been growing for several years. This represents a subtle shift from selling to buying in the economy. Informed consumers are largely responsible for an increasing number of transactions and actions, based on their perceived needs. This is particularly evident in the case of raw materials; the levels of organization between manufacturers and consumers have been reduced to the absolute minimum, with an overall margin getting smaller and smaller. Conducting such transactions over the Internet exposes consumers to new ways of communicating with product and service providers, e-mail being a simple but notable example. These experiences shape consumer expectations, which trickle down to health care, albeit slowly and with ongoing debate. Changes in consumer attitudes have been fueled by the increasing access and availability of information, again thanks to the Internet. In healthcare, informed consumers are both better empowered and demand to be more involved in decision-making regarding their health or that of their loved ones. Very often, impulse is a serious or life-threatening illness when the information, whatever the source, is of vital interest. However, day after day, simple conveniences and respect for precious time are potentially more relevant to patient satisfaction. Why would it take half a day of inconvenience for ten minutes of service? Few people have that kind of time today, and wasting time is offensive, even to those who do. How should providers react? What should initiatives focus on and what are the essential elements for success? Are the business models underlying the different market solutions financially sound? Will they continue and grow? How will personal health records be considered in the solutions? Who will own this data and who will be responsible for managing it? Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are far from clear. Nevertheless, the possibilities of today's technology and the successes in sectors other than health constitute, along with consumerism, a collective and serious call to action. This hasbeen suggested elsewhere. Providers must overcome fear, procrastination, the need for perfection, and the search for the “killer app,” because delay itself carries its own set of risks. In the short term, the answer is to start overcoming inertia and uncertainty. One must conclude that there is a critical mass of motivators, recognize the real downsides of the status quo, and develop a sensible plan of action. In the long term, it is truly the survival of the business that impacts traditional economic measures of revenue. , costs and market share. However, the ultimate by-products of these activities may be of greater importance, including a scalable electronic infrastructure for health care information, secure longitudinal medical records, comprehensive disease management, well-being and increased responsibility for health entrusted to the patient. Healthcare e-commerce involves transactions and the exchange of information between providers, hospitals, insurance agencies, state and federal regulators, and physician offices. Patients, the end consumers, are not directly involved. Forrester Research estimates that by 2004, B2B e-commerce will account for $2.7 trillion in revenue, or 17 percent of the total economy. The value of the B2B online healthcare market is estimated to have grown from $6 billion in 1999 to $348 billion in 2004, making it one-sixth of the healthcare sector's overall commerce.63 The main focus of B2B e-commerce is on supply. chain. B2B strives to achieve three goals: improving efficiency, reducing transaction costs, and providing real-time information to everyone involved. Efficiency is generally improved by simplifying healthcare delivery. Multi-layered approvals are being removed and replaced with simpler, faster approvals using artificial intelligence technologies. Inventory is better managed and tracked by locating it centrally and sharing information about its usage and future demands. Proactive management of illnesses and implementation of preventive health maintenance measures helps avoid prolonged hospital stays. For example, ePhysician.com allows doctors to write prescriptions online using palms. Physicians can interact with clinical systems not only to write prescriptions, but also to order lab tests and view patient information. Providers such as Claimsnet.com allow providers to submit claims online to payers; it uses a single standard for submitting claims. As an example of order processing, e-commerce would allow the healthcare provider to swipe a customer's health insurance membership card on a dial-up terminal, enter the appropriate data and immediately receive payments for the cash register. contribution to the service provided; the customer then pays the balance. Reducing transaction costs occurs by reducing the costs of fulfilling purchase orders from suppliers, reducing the costs of paying for goods and services, and reducing the cost of transferring vital information. All of this is typically accomplished by consolidating requests from different departments or groups to qualify for quantity discounts, obtaining the latest pricing information, and using the Internet to process all transactions. Companies like empactHealth.com agree with Health Management Associates (HMA) and Columbia/HCA that use..