Practical risk management considerations for clinical e-mail in ambulatory care

✍ Scribed by Michael G. Lloyd

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 487 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1074-4797
• DOI: 10.1002/jhrm.5600210305

✦ Synopsis

In 1997 an estimated 50 million people worldwide used e-mail and the number is expected to increase to 125 million in 2001.' Half of all Internet users looking up healthcare information would like to communicate with their physicians via e-mail, 25% were willing to pay for online access to their physician, and 20% were willing to switch health plans to gain such access.l This author predicts that within the next few years, all clinicians will be routinely using e-mail as a communications tool in patient care. In ten years or less, clinicians will wonder how they ever got along w ithout e-mail. For ambulatory care clinicians, the main questions still unanswered are how user-friendly the process will be and whether reimbursement will be available for providing services via e-mail.

E-mail has the same potential to revolutionize communication in patient care as did the telephone. And like the early days of the telephone, clinical e-mail raises similar concerns over accessibility, privacy, volume of contacts,