E-mail one of technology benefits touted at AMA forum

Physicians should embrace technology to improve health care quality, said speakers at a recent forum on virtual medicine.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. April 16, 2001.

In today's technology-driven world, many patients want to communicate by e-mail with their doctors.

In fact, some are willing to change physicians to find one who exchanges e-mail with patients.

"E-mail can be very useful and a nice adjunct to the patient-doctor relationship," said Daniel Z. Sands, MD, clinical director of electronic patient records and communication for CareGroup Healthcare System in Boston. Dr. Sands is also an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School.

He was among the featured speakers at the "Clinical Quality Improvement Forum: Virtual Medicine," held in suburban Chicago in March. The forum was sponsored by the Division of Clinical Quality Improvement of the American Medical Association. Topics included e-mail with patients, electronic medical records and data collection, and tracking quality of medical care.

The forum comes at a time when more physicians are examining the relationship between technology and medicine.

A Harris Interactive survey in February said the number of physicians using e-mail and the Internet was increasing. It found that 55% of practicing physicians communicate by e-mail with their colleagues, while 34% use it to talk with support staff. Yet, despite the trend, only 13% send e-mail to their patients.

Some doctors have security concerns about e-mail and worry about liability issues, Dr. Sands said. But e-mail improves patient access and communication, he added.

"We're shifting messaging from the telephone to e-mail," he said. [...]