The New York Times Health blog posted an article today about an article in The Archives of Surgery which reported on the use of e-mail between patients and surgeons. Simply providing the surgeon's e-mail address nearly triples the likelihood the patient will contact the surgeon about the surgery http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/the-doctor-is-online/.
E-mail is a potentially powerful tool to facilitate conversations between patients and physicians. It gives a method for a patient to ask potentially embarrassing questions, and also gives patients a chance to take their time and compose questions, rather than getting flustered during a short appointment. But some physicians believe good medicine can only be conducted in person, and others fear how e-mail could be used in the event of a malpractice law suit. There are also real concerns about e-mail's lack of security, which makes e-mail communications non-HIPAA compliant.
What do you see as the possibilites for e-mail or some other sort of secure messaging service between physicians and patients? Could this be an important tool for facilitating communication between patients and physicians? Or should physicians and patients both be concentrating on improving face-to-face communication?
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