There's an interesting story over at The Altantic regarding how comfortable different groups of Americans are when it comes to communicating with their doctors via email and text message. The gist:
The average American writes a novel's worth of email every year. They also read a novel's worth of trend stories about how all we do is text -- how 15 million texts sent every minute are destroying the art of conversation, rotting our souls. Still, only about one in ten Americans has ever emailed or texted with their doctor. The formal in-office face-to-face patient-doctor dynamic is largely sacrosanct.
Here's an interesting chart breaking down the comfort-level by various demographics:
Let's dig a bit deeper:
Tech-savvy practices and hospitals are increasingly using remote access systems for patients, where they can log in to a website and get test results or leave messages for physicians, within a secure system, in a limited capacity. That's a good place to start. It keeps all interactions in one HIPAA-compliant place and keeps doctors' personal phones and emails from being overrun by concerned patients. If a busy primary care physician has 1,500 patients, even if each one only emailed him every six months, that would be eight emails 365 days a year.
But some doctors, especially specialists with a smaller patient base who manage fewer chronic conditions, have been able to integrate texting into their practice. There are HIPAA-compliant text and email platforms, and most major insurers are figuring out ways to cover "digital visits.