E-mail Access May Improve Patient-Surgeon Communication

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Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Also Included In: Medical Students / Training;  Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 22 Feb 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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E-mail access to one's surgeon has can improve doctor-patient communication. Additionally, this seems to occur without affecting levels of patient satisfaction. This was reported on February 18, 2008 in Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

write the authors. E-mail has influenced industries worldwide, including banking and retail, but there has been minimal research about its use in health care, The physician-patient relationship traditionally has not utilized electronic means of communication. "The fundamental basis of the physician-patient relationship has always been face-to-face communication. However, advances in communications technology have, from time to time, challenged that assumption, "other than dire warnings about the potential minefield of legal disasters and litigation that might accompany its use."

Peter Stalberg, M.D., Ph.D., of the Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia, and colleagues canvassed 100 patients before they underwent thyroid or parathyroid surgery. Half of these patients were assigned were set to receive a contact sheet including the e-mail address of the surgeon, with a statement to inform them that the surgeon preferred e-mail to other forms of communication. The average age of this group was 45.1 years. The other half of these patients received an information sheet without an e-mail address or statement about the preferred method of communication of the surgeon. The average age of the second set was 48.2 years. The e-mail address was made available to all patients on the appointment card as well as on an associated website.

The researchers analyzed patient communication with the surgeon outside of consultation, in addition to information provided on patient satisfaction questionnaires. Of the 100 participants, 26 of the patients initiated communication with the surgeon near the time of the operation. Of these, 19 came from the e-mail-encouraged group and 7 came from the e-mail-discouraged group. Of those 26 who initiated communication, 22 did so by e-mail, three by fax, and one by telephone. In the group of 22 who used e-mail, 18 were in the group provided with e-mail information, while 4 were in the group that did not receive special e-mail information.

Generally, e-mails only addressed one issue, through some exceptions addressed as many as four separate issues in one e-mail. The most popular types of issues were general information (21 e-mails), postoperative recovery (eight e-mails), results (five e-mails) and reassurance (four e-mails.) Patient satisfaction was found to be comparable in both groups.

The authors conclude, tying e-mail preference to the patients. "People who use e-mail certainly would like to have e-mail access to their physicians," they write. "Despite the many concerns, we believe that this study shows that the provision to patients of readily available e-mail access to their surgeon provides a very effective means of improving communication prior to patients undergoing elective surgery."

E-mail Access and Improved Communication Between Patient and Surgeon
Peter Stalberg, MD, PhD; Michael Yeh, MD; Geraldine Ketteridge; Hilary Delbridge, BEd; Leigh Delbridge, MD, FRACS
Arch Surg. 2008;143(2):164-168
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Written by Anna Sophia McKenney

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