Helena HealthCare Position Paper on Electronic Messaging
However, electronic communications and e-mail do have some unique properties and concerns. This is an attempt to outline those concerns and reach common agreement on the appropriate use of e-mail with our patients.
We would like to give credit to the American Medical Informatics Association http://www.amia.org/ for their position paper on e-mail. For those of you interested in the complete paper, the link to this paper is: http://www.amia.org/pubs/other/email_guidelines.html. Please let us know (webmaster@hhcmt.com ) if this link is broken.
1) E-mail is more spontaneous than a letter but offers more permanence than oral communications
2) E-mail allows retention and clarification of advice provided in the clinic.
3) E-mail is especially useful for communication which is more easily understood in writing.
4) E-mail can also provide useful links to other information.
5) E-mail is less likely to accidentally get lost.
E-mail also possesses some disadvantages.
1) E-mail is not particularly secure or private.
2) E-mail is not well-suited for emergency communications.
3) There will be multiple recipients of certain e-mail messages in our offices.
4) The intended recipient may not be available immediately to answer the mail.
With these thoughts in mind, HelenaHealthCare would like to offer the availability of e-mail communications. Initially, not all physicians, nurses, appointment staff or billing staff will be participating. After an appropriate trial, showing this method of communication is useful and effective, we will expand the availability.
Patients who wish to have health care information provided by e-mail are requested to download, sign and bring to the clinic in person the release and consent form which can be found at the following link: Access and Use Agreement.
We will not accept this form by mail. You will need to be personally identified. As inconvenient as this seems, there is no other way to ensure that anyone@anywhere.net is really you.
Helena HealthCare will try to adhere to the following guidelines:
Turnaround time: All e-mail will be answered in approximately eight hours. However, e-mail will only be answered between the hours of 8 AM and 5 PM. E-mail received on one day, may therefore not be answered until the next day. Also, e-mail will not be answered on the weekends. This means that e-mail received on Friday may not be answered until Monday.
Privacy: Depending on the nature of the e-mail, there may be multiple recipients within Helena HealthCare. For example, billing questions will go to every member of the billing staff. This is to ensure that at least one person will be available to answer the question. Please do not send email directly to a single person at a particular clinic, who may not be working at that time and unable to answer. This will also apply to appointment questions. Appointment questions will go to every receptionist at the specific clinic where the appointment is requested. Questions regarding medical care, laboratory studies, and other reports, will go to the nursing staff at the clinic where the physician to whom the question is directed practices.
Permissible transactions and content: We believe is reasonable for people to request prescription refills, test results, release of records, and basic medical advice. We do not believe it is appropriate to be discussing problems related to sensitive medical diagnoses such as mental health and HIV.
Emergency messages: Emergency messages are not an appropriate use of e-mail. Remember, that messages may not be answered for eight hours or longer if received late in the day or on weekends. Consequently, if you have an emergency, you should call your physician's office immediately.
Medical records copies: It will be our policy to keep either paper or electronic copies of all e-mail correspondence.
Your e-mail address: We will request you designate on the release and consent form the specific e-mail address that you would like for this correspondence. We will not send e-mail to other addresses. Nor will we reply to e-mail originating from other addresses. We have no other mechanism for being certain that you have in fact requested this information. Also, it will be Helena HealthCare's firm policy, that your e-mail address will not be given out or used for any mass e-mail "Spam".
Plain text messages: Given the current difficulty of having a common encryption mechanism, all e-mail correspondence will be in readable English text. It will not be encrypted or in any other way hidden. You should be aware of this when you agree to e-mail correspondence.
Appointments: At the provider's discretion, e-mail correspondence may be discontinued and you will be invited to make an appointment to discuss the problem. There are numerous times when the difficulty of transcribing a long letter precludes an appropriate response by e-mail. Therefore, at the provider's discretion, you will be requested to make an appointment.
This policy may be amended from time to time as deemed appropriate. However, until patients, staff, and physicians, are completely comfortable with e-mail communications, all e-mail transactions will be required to conform to the above restrictions.