He put his e-mail address on a custom rubber stamp, along with six rules the patients agree to follow in their electronic communication. He then stamped the back of his business cards, which he gives to patients on a selective basis. The cards act like an informal contract. Meanwhile, a few colleagues have asked to borrow Dr. Sands' rubber stamp for their own business cards. And, in August, Dr. Sands' 25-physician, primary care practice, Healthcare Associates, began discussing whether the stamp should be replaced with a sticker that would go on the back of every physician's card.
Patients are demanding e-mail access to their physicians, doctors and others say.
Dr. Sands first used e-mail when patients working at his hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess, used the company system to ask him questions. But Dr. Sands and other doctors are trying to prove that e-mail need not be a burden, if you and your patients have an understanding about how to use it. The question, says Tom Ferguson, MD, editor of an industry newsletter on online consumer health and a professor of consumer health informatics at the University of Texas, is whether physicians will be willing to make the economic and cultural jump that this new method of communication requires. Fixing the Broken Link. Dr. Ferguson says the most radical thing about e-mail for doctors is the loss of control on when they talk to patients.