A number of authors suggest that the use of ICTs in healthcare substantially improves its effectiveness. As already noted, ICTs provide a more timely sharing ofinformation. However, a number of studies (Ray & Mukherjee, 2007;Waring & Wainwright, 2002) take this further suggesting that ICTs allow frameworks to be developed that reduce complex social, organisational and political issues in the dissemination of information, while still maintaining overall governance. At a more material level, Pan & Pokharel (2007) showed that the use of ICTs is essential for the procurement, distribution, inventory management and packaging of materials necessary for good health care. They found that unlike most other businesses, healthcare has two supply chains, one external and one internal since a single product might be required by a variety of users.
In smaller practices, Pelletier-Fleury et al.
(1999) found that ICTs can eliminate redundancy in patient care, while Andersson et al. (2002) and Leung et al. (2003) found ICTs added to the overall care of patients and effectiveness of the practice.