Much of the talk about the introduction of secure messaging (secure email) between clinicians and their patients revolves around convenience. There’s no doubt that it can greatly increase efficiency for both clinicians and patients.

The consumer argument is obvious, but I’m hearing the convenience factor more from clinicians as well lately–such as when a primary care physician in a busy community health center told me while I was shadowing him, “I wish the clinic made it possible for me to email with my patients. I would save so much time not trying to track down patients by phone, and almost all my patients have access to email.”

Not to diminish the convenience argument, but I’ve always been more interested in the health benefits that secure messaging offers. A good Associated Press/Washington Post article today highlighted both of these benefits.

In it, a 34-year-old woman from Milwaukee is quoted, “It makes sense to me to have the words laid out, to be able to re-read, to go back to it at a convenient time.”

In past blog posts, I’ve quoted the research that 40%-80% of everything a doctor tells a patient is completely forgotten by the time he or she gets home. Clearly, health communication can be greatly enhanced by any strategy that creates some lasting record to which the patient can return in order to extract the information he or she needs sometime down the road. That could be done through a secure message, an after-visit summary, or some other information prescription.

At some point, I think we’ll all wake up one day and realize that it was ludicrous that the US’s $2 trillion health care system still wasn’t utilizing these tools in the early 21st century. As Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet & American Life Project points out in the AP article, consumers are already using electronic tools in most other aspects of their lives.

How long will it take for these tools to be included into the norm of health care delivery?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 10:16 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.