Take care with patient e-mail policies

Electronic communication can enhance doctor-patient relationships, but already familiar legal traps lurk in the new revolution: privacy, malpractice and accuracy of information.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Jan. 22, 2001.

As e-mail, handheld computers and other technology become more commonplace in the doctor's office, so does the potential for lawsuits.

Health care lawyers are quick to point out that new forms of electronic communication provide more opportunity to do good for patients than bad. And, they say, the new forms of communication are a great way to make physicians' jobs more efficient.

Still, with recent headlines announcing how wonderful the new technology is and how good the coming technology will be, doctors need to be aware of potential pitfalls.

There don't appear to be any active lawsuits accusing physicians of using e-mail or other electronic communication improperly. There are, though, three areas that have the most potential for future litigation and that already are well-known for triggering lawsuits: accuracy of the information given to a patient, malpractice, and privacy and confidentiality.

But as technology continues to improve and, in turn, becomes a routine part of a physician's practice, potential lawsuits likely will provide new twists to old themes. Those three areas are vulnerable because exchanging information is faster and easier through e-mail than it was through letters or over the telephone.

"It will be very interesting to see technology interact with the heavily regulated field of medicine," said Douglas Hastings, president-elect of the American Health Lawyers Assn. and a senior member of the health law practice at Epstein, Becker & Green's Washington, D.C., office. "That set of entrepreneurs has not yet fully engaged with our complicated health care system." [...]