title: Access, attitudes, and concerns of physicians and patients toward e-mail use in health-related communication.
abstract: The Internet is likely to play a key role in future health care-related communication. The challenge for health care institutions is to determine how to use this technology most effectively without disturbing the delicate physician-patient relationship. As the first step to implementing the use of this technology, we explored the access, attitudes, and concerns both of physicians and patients regarding e-mail use for health care-related communication. At The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, we administered a questionnaire survey to faculty and residents in the Internal Medicine and Pediatrics departments and to the patients seen in the resident clinics. The results indicate that only a select group of physicians and patients might be ready to use e-mail for health care reasons. Most patients did not have access to the Internet and had no experience using e-mail. Though all physicians use e-mail, they were concerned about using it for health-related communication.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, 301 University, Rt 0566, Galveston, TX 77555-0566, USA. nhussain@utmb.edu
authors.forename: Nasir
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hussain
authors.forename: Akua
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Agyeman
authors.forename: Mandira
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Das Carlo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D001294:Attitude to Health; D034742:Electronic Mail; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D013781:Texas