I haven't decided whether it works for me with my patients, so I don't give out my email address that often. But I work in a large hospital system, so my email address is pretty easy to guess, and many of my patients are employees who have access to the internal email list anyway.
So I get emails from patients here and there. Most of these fall into one of two categories.
- Quick questions that are easy to answer. Email is great for these.
- Questions for which I need the office chart. This is not as easy, because when a patient calls on the phone, the nurse can get the chart and often answer the question his or herself. Or, if my input is needed, the nurse can just show me the chart and I can respond from there.
And there are other potential pitfalls as well.
Earlier this week, my husband, who takes care of people with liver disease, received on a Monday an email a patient had sent over the weekend. The patient reported feeling very sick, vomiting up blood, and feeling dizzy.
And my husband didn't get this message until Monday!
Luckily, the family recognized how sick the patient was and took him to the emergency room without waiting for a response.
Maybe our automatic-email-responses should read: "I may not respond to your email in a timely fashion. If you're having a life-threatening emergency, please log off and dial 911."
