In its own way, the Internet may be changing the practice of medicine as much as antibiotics, anesthesia or immunizations. McLean, Va. Nearly 40 percent of Americans with on-line access use the web to search for health information, a survey by Princeton Survey Research Associates and the Institute for the Future, a California think tank found. But they are also finding, or soon will, that cyber medicine has pitfalls as well as promise. Both patients and doctors tend to be naive about the dangers of medical e-mail. In fact, it often takes 48 hours for a busy doctor to answer e-mail.
Confidentiality is another huge risk.
E-mailing your doctor from work is dicey because your employer may see it. At home, especially if you share a computer with your spouse or kids, e-mail from your doctor may wind up on a screen everybody can see. In between, in the vastness of cyberspace, your e-mail is vulnerable to busybodies hacking their way. Be careful if you fill out any medical forms on line, or otherwise divulge personal medical information, too. Make sure there's a lock icon in the lower left corner, which means whoever has designed the form has included encryption, says Rippen.