For three decades, a Phoenix-based medical practice of four physicians used virtually no digital communication among its three offices. The practice, Associated Gastroenterologists, lacked e-mail and an intranet, and had no system to centrally manage technology, data storage, or security.
Instead, 55 workers shared information by faxing or hand-carrying paper charts. Staff wasted time hunting for records on 140,000 patients. Dictating data from printed forms into Microsoft Word and storing paper files ran up costs. On 30 desktop PCs connected to a peer-to-peer network, Internet access was limited to accessing a remote billing system and a few managers e-mailing vendors over Windows Live Mail.
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