US doctors want to be paid for email communication with patients
http://www.100md.com
《英国医生杂志》
New York
Email is becoming a more common tool of clinical practice, enabling doctors to communicate with patients between office visits, improve diagnosis and compliance with medical treatments, and facilitate medical record keeping, says a report in the New England Journal of Medicine ( 2004;350: 1705-7).
"Judging from our early experience in a practice that offers secure electronic communication, e-mail gives doctors and patients more time to think," wrote Dr Tom Delbanco and Dr Daniel Sands of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and Harvard Medical School. "Doctors and patients move closer together, and trust grows strikingly. Interchange becomes more personal, and office visits seem more efficient and less emotionally charged."
Although many doctors continue to use conventional email, some hospitals have set up messaging systems on secure websites to protect patients' privacy. At the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 18 000 patients routinely log on to a protected website called PatientSite to request refills, write to doctors, or scan personal medical records.
"And with time offline to reflect and learn, patients appear to be better able to grasp information that is central to their care. Indeed, one of our patients told us, `Exchanges by e-mail are the next best thing to a house call,'" the authors wrote.
About a quarter of practising doctors, surveys show, have communicated with patients through email. But many doctors feel that it means working free of charge, and some have begun charging for email consultations.
In some cases, patients pay a flat rate from $100 (￡56; 84) to several hundred dollars a year for such services, said Dr Sands, an assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School.
Urged on by the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians, insurers and health plans are exploring ways of paying doctors for using email, whether by the message or episode of illness.(Scott Gottlieb)
Email is becoming a more common tool of clinical practice, enabling doctors to communicate with patients between office visits, improve diagnosis and compliance with medical treatments, and facilitate medical record keeping, says a report in the New England Journal of Medicine ( 2004;350: 1705-7).
"Judging from our early experience in a practice that offers secure electronic communication, e-mail gives doctors and patients more time to think," wrote Dr Tom Delbanco and Dr Daniel Sands of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and Harvard Medical School. "Doctors and patients move closer together, and trust grows strikingly. Interchange becomes more personal, and office visits seem more efficient and less emotionally charged."
Although many doctors continue to use conventional email, some hospitals have set up messaging systems on secure websites to protect patients' privacy. At the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 18 000 patients routinely log on to a protected website called PatientSite to request refills, write to doctors, or scan personal medical records.
"And with time offline to reflect and learn, patients appear to be better able to grasp information that is central to their care. Indeed, one of our patients told us, `Exchanges by e-mail are the next best thing to a house call,'" the authors wrote.
About a quarter of practising doctors, surveys show, have communicated with patients through email. But many doctors feel that it means working free of charge, and some have begun charging for email consultations.
In some cases, patients pay a flat rate from $100 (￡56; 84) to several hundred dollars a year for such services, said Dr Sands, an assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School.
Urged on by the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians, insurers and health plans are exploring ways of paying doctors for using email, whether by the message or episode of illness.(Scott Gottlieb)