Resumen
This article focuses on the trend among physicians to be net savvy, in order to get business benefits in their profession. Most recently, the Internet and Websites are being used by physicians in private practice as a competitive business tool. An exploratory study of physicians in private practice was conducted to investigate physicians' use of the Internet as an information and marketing tool. Respondents to the survey includes 86 members of a northeast chapter of the American Medical Association. They found that while approximately 50% of the physicians were using the Internet to access professional medical information and perceived it to be useful, only 14% said they would recommend the Internet as a medical information resource fore patients. The demographic features of the practices such as medical specialization, size, and age appeared to make little difference in whether a medical practice was a Web Technology Adopter or not. Practices with fewer than 50% managed care patients were significantly more likely to either have a Web site or have plans to develop one. Seventy percent of the Adopters indicated that less than one-half of their practices' patients were enrolled in managed care. This compares to 36% of the other group reporting fewer than one-half managed care patients. Also, practices that currently have a Web presence were asked to assess the impact of the site on the practice.