Would you Like to Have a Doctor's Office you could Communicate with via E Mail?

Today, we started a program at UAMS Family Medicine Clinic that allows patients to e mail, using a secure web site. Using this system, all of our patients can contact their physicians via e mail and:
1. Request an appointment
2. Get their medications renewed or refilled.
3. Send a clinical question to the doctor.
4. Receive the results of recent lab tests and x ray tests.

We are excited about the system and believe it will be the way most medicine is practiced in the future. The patient must complete a written authorization, including their e mail address and signature. Then the office staff sends them an e mail message with a link to the website where they simply create a user name and password and they are ready to go.

These messages are initially read and screened by the office phone nurse and routed to the appropriate physician for a reply. When the encounter is completed, the phone nurse copies and pastes the transaction into the electronic medical record.

Would you like to participate in a practice that offers these services?

I'll let you know how it goes, but I am excited to get this off the ground here.