Physician and Patient Email Communication Improves Quality

Kaiser Permanente studied 35,423 people with diabetes, hypertension, or both, who used secure patient-physician e-mail within a two-month period. That communication was associated with a statistically significant improvement in effectiveness of care as measured by the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS). In addition, the use of e-mail was associated with an improvement of 2.0–6.5 percentage points in performance on other HEDIS measures such as cholesterol and blood pressure screening and control.

Is your physician embracing new forms of communication?