Physicians highly value physician to physician, face to face communication time. As is the case with the rest of the 21st century world there is gradual decrease in real time, much less face to face communication. Physicians don't come to the hospital for professional social networking the way they used to. They still want and need data and information. They have more mechanisms to access it within an increasingly compressed time cycle to manage it.  The question at hand is "what is going to drive physicians to physician specific, secure portal/intranet or a corporate email account?" A text book answer might read like "more convenient connectivity to each other to clinical systems, more efficient workflow, CME, rapid access to reference material & to pose clinical questions / care plans / protocols / evidence based data."

The content / data we all desire to share can be broadly categorized into the categories of communication/news, relationships/political, business operations and clinical operations. These diverse categories make physician intranet / portal and email adoption challenging but, it also (we believe) holds the secret to success.  Our experience to date regarding the adoption of electronic medical record (EMR) or corporate email would indicate that a one solution approach will not be quickly accepted by the majority. There is no magic solution that will remedy all physician e-culture challenges. Progress will be achieved through an evolution of education, experience and acceptance.  Ong and Polkowski et.al. 2001 writes that "It is possible to create and diffuse an Intranet in a multi-hospital system in a cost-effective manner. However, the key challenges were selling the potential of this new technology to opinion leaders and other stakeholders...."