Enabling patients to contact doctors on the internet could improve the physician-citizen relationship, it has been claimed.
A new report in the February issue of Archives of Surgery suggests that telecommunications advances have made face-to-face consultations just one of many options for medical patients.
The article contends that, while there has been a lot of publicity surrounding the ways in which web chat can help sectors such as banking and retail, the internet's implications for the medical profession have yet to be comprehensively explored.
Peter Stalberg of the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, Australia, divided 100 patients in to two groups, one of which received an information sheet informing them that their surgeons preferred method of communication was email and another that did not include any such statement.
Some 38 per cent of the group given email details initiated communication compared to 14 per cent of the group not given such web chat information.
Of the 26 per cent of patients who initiated communication with surgeons overall, 84 per cent used email, three used fax and one used the telephone.
A new poll released by the British Medical Association highlights concerns held by British GPs over government proposals to extend surgery opening hours.
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