20th century comms. for 21st century docs.

As some of the physicians responding a WSJ.com article (link below), there are various factors for not emailing with patients but as new healthcare models such as HelloHealth show, there can be huge upsides too.

Prediction: Gmail-Google Health and Hotmail-MS Healthvault will bring HIPPA-compliant, patient/doctor communications to the U.S. in the near future.

Now we just need to work out how physicians will get reimbursed for giving care via email?

Comments on WSJ:

"The major disadvantage of email and one reason I try to avoid it with my patients is that it does NOT become part of the medical record so covering physicians have no access to it and creates a silo of information not readily available."

"Hippa violation, no reimbursement, increased risk. Done."

"I don’t e-mail patients because I need to ask more than 1 question and it is much faster to speak than type. Plus I need context and tone to interpret content. I have seen far too many misunderstandings with e-mail."

According to the Center for Studying Health System Change, only 6.7% of the 4,200-plus office-based physicians who responded to a 2008 national survey “routinely” emailed patients about clinical matters. Most just didn’t have the technology available, but even among the doctors who had email access, only 19.5% regularly emailed with patients.

Full article here