Anticlue

Patient / Physician Email Guidelines

Everybody loves email. Heck look at the gmail account craze. Email is a very convenient way to communicate and enhance the physician patient relationship.
But it does have its risks, and very few physicians are interested in using in email, liability being the overall concern with confidentiality a distant second. (survey here)

As Jacob has pointed out, email isn't the greatest from a provider view. Email can't be relied on for confidentiality, unless the contents of the message are encrypted. Also the reciever needs to be validated, and the sender authenticated. Also consider that the home email account maybe read my multiple members of the family. Another concern is sending email to the employees work account, that may lead to inopportune disclosures to the employer.

A couple of groups have gotten together to start to address the issue, but they may need to update their information.

Journal of American Medical Informatics Association Email Guidelines (1998)
American Medical Association Guidelines (2003)
Healthy Email