Online and On Call: Part One

Introduction

There's much more to the Internet than just the World Wide Web. Almost 50% of people in the United States use electronic mail in some aspect of their lives. Email provides a direct communication channel, rather than a broadcast channel; yet in healthcare professionals have been resistant to it.

In a 1999 survey of US physicians, only 3% report they regularly communicate with their patients via email, or electronic patient-centered communication (ePCC).

Healthcare providers need a framework for choosing the communication mode that is most appropriate for each situation. Certain kinds of communication needs may be satisfied through email.

Question: Why do only a handful of pioneering docs currently invite email from their patients? How can you broach this subject with your physician?

In this series of articles, I answer these questions so that the net-savvy e-patient can start to have a secure and productive relationship in cyberspace with the dotcom doctor.

What Does Email Entail?

Electronic mail is a form of communication in which a message is composed on a computer and then transmitted across a computer network until it arrives at the computer of the intended recipient where it can be read, saved, printed, or forwarded to others.

securitE
Email messages are generally transmitted over the global computer network known as the Internet, and are not usually encrypted (coded so that others cannot read them), so people other than the intended recipient can read them. This happens most commonly when messages are misaddressed. At its worst, the security of email is probably similar to that of a postcard.

convEnience
With email, the parties who are communicating do not need to do so at the same time, as they do on the telephone. You can send messages when it is convenient for you, and your physician can read the message when it is convenient for him or her.

NOTE: Email should never be used for any urgent or time-sensitive matters.

formalitE
Another property of email that is important is its informality. People who send email often draft their messages quickly and send them with relatively little thought. The informality of email makes it useful for spontaneous communication (as with the telephone), but when used to communicate important issues about your health, it is best to take a little more time with the message, to prevent misunderstanding.

Eternity
Despite the informal nature of email, it has a unique "permanent quality." Even after an email has been deleted from your computer, it may exist on other computers. Messages can also be printed and saved. For these reasons, email should generally be thought of as potentially "permanent."

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