Patients who e-mail with doctors see their health improve
Related: Doctors, e-mail, health, improve, Patients
Maybe doctors are starting to realize that when you treat patients like actual people, they can heal. Patients with diabetes or hypertension who communicated with their doctors via e-mail got better care and better health outcomes, according to new California research.
The improvements as a result of the e-mail exchanges included blood sugar and blood pressure control. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has called for implementing “secure patient-physician messaging” as part of electronic health records by 2013. It seems like a good thing.
Kaiser Permanente health system started phasing in secure e-mail communication nationwide in 2004. In southern California, three million patients as well as all primary and specialty care Kaiser doctors signed up for it. By the end of 2008, 35,423 adult patients (7.8% of members in that geographical area) and 3,092 primary care physicians had used it.
Kaiser Permanente analyzed 630,807 e-mail messages between patients and doctors from March 2006 to December 2008, then compared them to baseline data from the year before. Most of the e-mails were initiated by the patients and those who emailed their doctors saw improvements of 2.4% to 6.5% in blood sugar control and screening, cholesterol screening and control and screening for retinopathy and kidney disease.
Last Updated on July 13th, 2010
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