Patients Want More “Traditional†Online Communication With Doctors
With all of the talk about the potential of blogs, podcasts, wikis and other social media technologies to transform healthcare, the fact is these tools are not yet in the mainstream. They take a lot of time and effort to produce properly and many physicians do not understand social media and are unwilling to devote the time to exploring it.
Those seeking reasons for this, should look no further than more mature online communications tools like e-mail. According to a new Center for Studying Health System Change study, only about 25% of physicians use e-mail to communicate with patients. Dr. Bob Centor, author of the blog DB’s Medrants, explains why:
“Many physicians . . . avoid email communication as another cost of time. . . Most insurers do not pay for email. Physician avoidance is mostly about money.â€
If a September Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive poll is any indication, patients want physicians to adopt e-mail, electronic medical records and other technologies much more aggressively. 74 percent of respondents want to communicate with physicians by e-mail. 67 percent want to receive the results of diagnostic tests via this method. People crave fast, efficient communication with their doctors and the medical profession is not responding.
Let’s compare the numbers one more time. Barely 25% of physicians use e-mail for patient communication, but 74% of patients want to interact with doctors via it. That’s quite a gulf between demand and supply. Are any savvy entrepreneurs looking at this data and putting together a business plan to meet this need?
When it comes to communication, e-mail is a no-brainer. It’s fast, easy, secure and cheap. However, as with podcasting and blogging, physicians will have to be provided with incentives (financial, business, personal) before they will be persuaded to take full advantage of these technologies.
October 5th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Have you seen any research, or variance, between physcians who are just graduating vs. those who have been practicing for years? I am curious about the notion that technology (email in this case) is considered a time cost rather than a way to build better relationships and provide better communication to their patients. It seems that over time, many will learn how to leverage these very technologies to save time, add value, and in fact make more money. There is no doubt this transformation will take a good while….
October 8th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Unity:
I haven’t seen any numbers about use of e-mail by age or time since graduation. However, I would be suprised if the numbers were different given the time constraits faced by newly minted physicians. But, until e-mail interventions are compenstated widely, I’m not sure if it will catch on. I was speaking with someone who runs a celebrated VA hospital this weekend about this and he seems to agree with me. As you may be aware the VA is leader in embracing healthcare IT.