Spinning off of the lack of resource allocation is the finding
that the health care industry is lagging behind in terms of
e-commerce applications. One study of American health care
providers showed that while 92% of health care professionals
surveyed had informational Web sites, only 20% were participating in extranets or supply chain networks, and only 15%
were currently offering enterprise portals [3]. The general
reluctance of the health care industry to adopt IT change, is also
highlighted in a study of health care in the United Kingdom [4].
This study shows that while general practitioners were using
computers as a part of their daily routine, only 19% of general
practitioners in the U.K. were currently linked to NHSnet, a
government sponsored network that can be used to link all of
the country’s general practitioners into central databases via
voice, data, and mobile communication media [4]. Although the
current use of information systems in the health care industry
is minimal, there has been a push to allow information systems
to play a more intricate role in health care. This is evidenced
by research showing that the percentage of resources allocated to IT is increasing from the before mentioned 2% to more like
5%–7% [5].