It is widely acknowledged that one of the greatest challenges facing healthcare information technology today is the effective sharing of clinical and administrative information among healthcare providers. Manufacturing firms benefit in particular from ICT-induced efficiency in internal information exchange whereas service industries benefit from improvements in external communication.
Intensive interdisciplinarity is required in hospitals to provide surgery or to organize discharge, but cross disciplinary collaboration is left optional for after-care between secondary and primary care although 80% of healthcare expenditure is consumed by chronic disorders. Cross professional communication needs to be complemented by data sharing, forums for informal interaction and coordination by individuals who can engage with multiple communities (Morton & Cornwell, 2009).