Online-only: Patients like being able to email their doctors, study says
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* Natalie McGill

Patients with email access to their physicians like the convenience and instant access to medical advice, according to a recent study.

Out of 21 medical groups interviewed about advantages and disadvantages to providing electronic communication, 18 said patients were more satisfied when services such as email became an option and 14 reported the access was a time-saver, according to a study published in the August edition of *Health Affairs*.

Having email access is beneficial because patients can get better access to their physician and may not have to wait as long to schedule an appointment, worry about missing work or getting a babysitter, said Tara Bishop, MD, a study author and an assistant professor of public health and medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

“From a patient’s perspective, it could certainly help improve access to care and possibly also cost of care,” Bishop told *The Nation’s Health*. “And I also think there’s a certain aspect of improving the quality of care, too, in the sense that patients may get more engaged and manage their chronic conditions better or be more proactive because they feel they have more access.”

But patient email access may not necessarily be as beneficial for the physicians, the study found. Disadvantages included an increased physician workload and a lack of payment for providing electronic communication. Physician-patient email is not typically included in health insurance plans, the study said.

“[Physicians] don’t have any incentive to manage things electronically or see fewer patients because they don’t get paid for it,” Bishop said. “I think there is a cultural barrier and there’s this big financial barrier. I think there’s a lot of discussion about things moving in the right direction, but how far it moves it remains to be seen.”

One solution is to assemble a team at a medical practice to handle the electronic communication, but a decision would need to be made on who is qualified to reply to the messages, Bishop said.

Bishop, an internist, said the study was an opportunity to see how medical practices handle electronic communications and to see their advantages.

“The Web, the Internet and email are a part of our lives and I think medicine should and will be moving more to that direction, especially since we have many more electronic health records and secure ways to communicate with patients,” Bishop said. “That was really the motivation to do this study, how do you actually shift what I think is an older model of delivering care, which is all surrounded around the office visit, to what I would call more 21st century health care.”

For more information, visit [http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/32/8/1361.full.html](http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/32/8/1361.full.html).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association