Experts debate merits of physician-patient email

This month's Wall Street Journal's "Big Issues" feature focuses on healthcare, including a debate-style article with two expert views on physician-patient email conversations, FierceHealthIT reported. Arguing in favor of physician-patient emails, Joseph Kvedar, founder and director of the Center for Connected Health in Boston, says the practice helps build better relationships and is good for business. And, he adds, privacy concerns are overblown. Meanwhile, Sam Bierstock, founder and president of Champions in Healthcare, a healthcare IT consulting group in Delray Beach, Fla., argues that email should be limited to basic patient-doctor communications, such as appointment scheduling and prescription refills, as email does not allow physicians to watch patients' important reactions to information or ensure that the information exchanged is accurate and understood. The FierceHealthIT report also includes an overview of the arguments for and against unique patient identifiers. --Read the full FierceHealthIT article