Physician's emerging roles relating to trends in health information technology.

Objective: To determine the new roles that physicians will adopt in the near future to adjust to accelerating trends from managed care to outcome-based practice to health care reform to health information technology to the evolving role of health consumers.

Methods: Trends and related developments concerning the changing roles of physicians based on prior literature reviews.

Results: Six possible roles, traditional, gatekeeper, coach, navigator, informatician and one voice among many, are discussed in terms of physician's centrality, patient autonomy, decision-making and uncertainty, information seeking, satisfaction and outcomes, particularly those related to compliance.

Conclusion: A greater understanding of these emerging roles could lead to more efficacious outcomes in our ever changing, increasingly complex medical system. Patients often have little understanding of emerging trends that lead to the development of specialized roles such as hospitalist and navigators and, relatedly, the evolving roles of physicians.