By Suzanne LeighTue Jun 21, 7:09 AM ET
It was my sixth attempt to reach my doctor by phone, with a simple query about a prescription. "The doctor is with a patient right now," intoned the receptionist - again.
I took a deep breath. "Would it be possible to reach him by e-mail?"
There was a pause. "The doctor doesn't have an e-mail address."
No e-mail address? My doctor practices in the shadow of Silicon Valley.
"He'll try to call between patients," she said.
And so I waited, held hostage by the phone, like most patients who need to make contact with their doctors but don't require a face-to-face consultation.
In a 2002 survey by Harris Interactive, 90% of adults with Internet access indicated they want to communicate with their physicians via e-mail. But a survey last year by Manhattan Research, a marketing information and services firm, found that less than 20% of physicians communicate via e-mail.
The top reason doctors give for withholding their e-mail address is the fear that it will lead to "too much access" and they will be barraged with messages about "trivial matters," according to a Journal of Family Practice article in 2001.
In other words, patients can't be trusted not to abuse our doctors' time. But if doctors finally moved into the high-tech age, they'd soon discover that many of their concerns about e-mail are misplaced.
Last month, the journal Pediatrics confirmed what disgruntled patients have known for a long time: E-mail can save the doctor's time, too. Researchers evaluated e-mails sent between two pediatricians and 54 parents of patients over six weeks. They found that of the 81 e-mails generated by parents, 70 required just one e-mail response. Most focused mostly on medical questions. And far from being deluged, the physicians said they spent an average 30 minutes a day responding to e-mails. Parents, as a result, reported fewer phone calls and appointments.
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Posted by gruwell at June 22, 2005 12:40 PM | TrackBack