Communicating with your Health Care Provider via E-mail:
A Review of Issues and Cautions for Patients
By: Peter J. Embi, MD, MS
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Using E-mail to Communicate with your Health Care Provider |
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Introduction
Using E-mail to Communicate with your Health Care Provider
Conclusion & Links
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Security and Confidentiality
E-mail sent over the internet is, in most cases, a relatively insecure form of communication. Even putting technical considerations like hackers and interception of E-mail aside, there are other, more common security and confidentiality issues to consider. The following are some key issues to consider when sending or receiving E-mail:
- Who's reading your E-mail?
- If you use E-mail at work, there's a very good chance that your messages are stored on their systems and are available for your employers to read. Realize that they have a legal right to read your messages.
- You'll also want to consider whether others can see your messages. Be sure to lock your workstation (password protected screensavers are a good way to do this) when you're away from your desk so that others can't gain access to your E-mail.
- Because anyone passing by can view what's on your screen, it's also a good idea to use subject headings in your messages that don't give away any sensitive information. Rather than using the subject line, "HIV Test Results," you may want to use simply, "Results," (not that you should be corresponding via E-mail about anything this sensitive anyway).
- If you're using an internet service provider as your E-mail host, make sure you understand their privacy and security policies and what they do with your messages after you've downloaded them.
- Bottom line: you probably shouldn't use your work E-mail to correspond with your provider and you should take precautions to secure your messages whatever system you use.
- Who's reading your provider's E-mail?
- It's important to determine who will be reading your provider's E-mail. You may assume that a message sent directly to him or her will be read by no one else, but that is not necessarily the case.
- It is not uncommon for a nurse or other personnel to read all messages sent in order to "triage" the messages for action.
- Will you provider's employer have access to your email correspondence? (probably, yes)
- Does your provider know your E-mail address?
- Will he or she recognize messages coming from you as authentic?
- It's probably best to give your provider your E-mail address and inform him/her that you'll only use that account to send/receive E-mail. That way no other message will be mistaken as coming from you.
- Are you sending E-mail to the right address?
- Before sending any important messsages, be sure to send a practice message to assure you've got the address correct.
- Just because a message isn't returned as "undeliverable", doesn't mean it reached the intended party.
- Once you've confirmed the correct E-mail address, you'll want to save it in your E-mail program's address book. That way, you can choose it from there at a later date and avoid accidentally having a "typo" lead to your sending the message to the wrong address.
- What about loss of data?
- Let's face it, computers crash and data can be lost. In order to avoid losing valuable correspondence, be sure to back-up your data often and save print-outs of E-mail messages for later reference.
- Will your provider do the same by including your E-mail correspondence as part of your medical record?
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