Posted on October 4, 2004 at 12:12 p.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — “Take two aspirin and e-mail me in the morning.” This new take on the old cliché in patient/physician relationships may become more and more a reality as use of electronic communication in medicine increases. A new UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) study shows that patients who already use e-mail to communicate with their physician find it generally beneficial, yet some potential trouble spots remain.
“Patients who employ e-mail seem to enjoy its efficiency, primarily in administrative aspects such as checking on tests or prescriptions,” says Dr. Thomas K. Houston, assistant professor of medicine at UAB and lead author of the study examining the perceptions of early adopters of e-mail communication with their physician. “However, privacy issues and inappropriate use of e-mail remain as concerns the medical community must address.”
In a study of 311 patients who used e-mail to communicate with their physician, Houston and colleagues reported in the September issue of the American Journal of Managed Care that the majority reported that e-mail was overwhelmingly more efficient than the telephone. Most patients who used e-mail did so to check on laboratory results or to renew prescriptions.
“These ‘early adopter’ patients who communicated with their physicians electronically were more highly educated and younger than the general population, and had lower reported general health status,” Houston said.
Major concerns of using the new technology include privacy issues. Patients reported being worried that employers, insurance companies or co-workers might be able to read e-mails sent to a physician. Also, more than 20 percent of patients used e-mail to report urgent issues such as chest pain or suicidal thoughts to their physician.
“Clearly this can be an area of concern,” Houston said. “When a patient needs immediate medical intervention, the delay of communication by email is a big problem. Patients need to be educated regarding appropriate uses of electronic communication.”
Houston speculates that the efficiency of e-mail for administrative issues might lead to increased use of the technology in chronic disease populations, for whom prescription refills, appointments and lab tests are more frequent. Since this research was started, new, more secure, HIPPA compliant, forms of electronic patient-centered communication have been developed and are in use by some vanguard medical institutions.
Researchers from Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center collaborated on this research. The study was funded by the Bayer Institute for Health Care Communication.