A decade of digital strategy in the pharmaceutical industry

Leonard Lerer and Mike Piper

Chapter Chapter 3 in Digital Strategies in the Pharmaceutical Industry, 2003, pp 25-30 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The Internet became an issue of interest to pharmaceutical companies in the early 1990s. At the time, excitement was very much focused on what e-commerce and the Internet could do for healthcare delivery (as opposed to the development and sale of pharmaceuticals or medical devices). The concept of the ‘health portal’, a one-stop site where the user could obtain information, communicate and transact, came to the fore. This was a seductive idea in that the health portal was supposed to facilitate the smooth running of the healthcare system, by providing a system for electronic transactions that would otherwise be performed through paper-based systems, and also offer a single central resource of healthcare-related information (for example health advice for consumers or the latest prescription guidelines for doctors). Companies such as Healtheon/WebMD (co-founded by Netscape pioneer Jim Clark) claimed that the Internet would streamline and standardize communications between physicians, hospitals, insurers, pharmacies, laboratories and patients. The benefits included a reduction in administrative expenses and an increase in customer satisfaction and the quality of care. No longer would a secretary at a local physician’s office type up a claim and fax it to an insurance company, where another secretary would re-enter it into their proprietary system; prescriptions would be filled over the Internet and centrally held medical records updated automatically.

Keywords: Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Company; Healthcare Delivery; Healthcare Industry; Electronic Transaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-59879-9_3

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230598799_3

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