A major concern for HIM professionals is the effect of e-mail on the patient record. Because e-mail serves as a way for physicians to direct patients on their individual care plans as well as a way for patients to respond about their treatments, this information becomes part of the clinical record. Providers and others who work with e-mail recommend including it in the patient record. How organizations evaluate this recommendation and others like it depends on culture and organizational structure. Integrated delivery systems and managed care environments that rely on intranets to coordinate patient care and health services may expect more pressure to formalize e-mail in clinical record business processes.
Some good resources are already in place today.
This position paper offers extensive suggestions on aspects of e-mail in the clinical environment. We see the influence of this work on several healthcare organization's Web sites. Both the Stanford Medical Group and Kaiser Permanente provide patients with instructions on how to use e-mail to communicate with providers. Recently funded by a Robert Wood Johnson grant to expand the project to five states, the current effort is known as the Healthkey Project and is committed to demonstrating secure e-mail communication through model privacy practices and pilot site evaluation. The brief draws on a number of references, including the AMIA position paper, and provides comprehensive direction to practitioners.