Physician and Patient Email Communication Improves Quality

Kaiser Permanente studied 35,423 peoplewith diabetes, hypertension, or both, who used secure patient-physiciane-mail within a two-month period. That communication was associated with a statisticallysignificant improvement in effectiveness of care as measuredby the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS).In addition, the use of e-mail was associated with an improvementof 2.0äóñ6.5 percentage points in performance on other HEDISmeasures such as cholesterol and blood pressurescreening and control.

Is your physician embracing new forms of communication?