Medical communication between Patient-Doctor is

considered privileged, and demands strict confidentiality.

Features of medical communication-

1) Effective interaction between the

clinician and patient,

2) Observance of medicolegal prudence

 Advantages of using e-mail
• Accelerates communication of the written
word.

• Allows communication any time of day.

• Does not need the attention of both parties at

the same time.
 Advantages…
• Provides a mechanism for sending the same
health education information simultaneously to
many patients,

• Is simple, convenient and inexpensive to use,

• Enables physicians to direct patients to health

information on the Internet.
 Informed consent for use of e-
mail.
Guidelines.
* Provide instructions for when and how to
escalate to phone calls and office visits.
* Describe security mechanisms in place.
* Indemnify the health care institution for
information loss due to technical failures.
* Waive encryption requirement, if any, at
patient's insistence.
 Practical implications -
• Patients to put their name and patient
identification number in the body of the
message.

• Print all messages, with replies and

confirmation of receipt, and place in
patient's paper chart.
 Categorize emails
Patients to put category of transaction in
subject line of message for filtering:
eg.
• “prescription,”
• “appointment,”
• “medical advice,”
• “billing question”.
 Security

• Never forward patient-identifiable information to a

third party without the patient's express permission.

• Do not share professional e-mail accounts with family

members.

• Do not use unencrypted wireless communications with

patient-identifiable information.

• Perform at least weekly backups of mail onto long-term

storage.
• Do not use e-mail for urgent matters.

• Maintain a mailing list of patients, but

Do not send group mailings where recipients

are visible to each other.

Use blind copy feature in software.
• Both parties to use Auto-reply tool to confirm
receipt of message.
 Soul Thang
Composed by: Scott P. Schreer, Stephen A. Love.
•https://www.amia.org/mbrcenter/pubs/email_guidelines.asp
•http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC61279/?tool=pubmed
Sr. Advisor (Medical communications)
Digital-medicine.blogspot.com