Precription for Doctors: E-mail

An excellent article from USA Today, excerpted below:

"Prescription for doctors: E-mail"

In a 2002 survey by Harris Interactive, 90% of adults with Internet access indicated they want to communicate with their physicians via e-mail. But a survey last year by Manhattan Research, a marketing information and services firm, found that less than 20% of physicians communicate via e-mail.

The top reason doctors give for withholding their e-mail address is the fear that it will lead to "too much access" and they will be barraged with messages about "trivial matters," according to a Journal of Family Practice article in 2001.

In other words, patients can't be trusted not to abuse our doctors' time. But if doctors finally moved into the high-tech age, they'd soon discover that many of their concerns about e-mail are misplaced.