Patient-physician e-mail: passion or fashion?

• Published in: The health care manager Vol. 22; no. 3; p. 265
• Main Author: Freed, David H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.07.2003
• Subjects: Delivery of Health Care - trends; Electronic Mail - utilization; Humans; Physician-Patient Relations; Professional Practice; Remote Consultation - utilization; Risk Assessment
• ISSN: 1525-5794
• DOI: 10.1097/00126450-200307000-00012

This article surveys the nature, prevalence, and risks and benefits of patient-physician e-mail as a prelude to critically evaluating what will be required for it to become a truly transformational technology. Diverse materials from both the popular press and various clinical domains are consulted in order to appraise patient-physician e-mail's efficacy in different contexts and among different patient and physician users. Early evidence that patient-physician e-mail has lasting power includes its use in niche clinical applications, appearance of unsolicited patient e-mail, historical patterns of medical technology adoption, and increasing use of the Internet in general. Patient-physician e-mail will become genuinely transformational if it affirmatively improves the patient-physician encounter, contributes to better clinical outcomes, makes patient-physician communication more convenient for both parties, demonstrably transcends existing reimbursement and medicolegal concerns, and promotes patient empowerment. Like all technologies, use and misuse of patient-physician e-mail will determine whether its possibilities will become realities.