E-mail Communication with Patients Booming.

• Position: Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Medem, the e-health network founded by the nation's leading medical specialty societies and the American Medical Association, has released findings from its fifth Physicians' Use of the Internet study, revealing that the proportion of doctors communicating directly with their patients via e-mail has sharply increased in the last year. It shows 200% growth in doctors' use of email with patients in less than one year. Ten percent of physicians are utilizing it on a daily or weekly basis to communicate with their patients, refuting the widely held perception that doctors are not Internet-savvy.

The study also found that the number of physicians building websites for their practices has doubled to more than 50%, and currently half of all doctors who responded are using the Internet in their offices on a daily basis. This reflects substantial growth from less than a year ago, when a study by the American Medical Association showed that 37% of physicians were using the Web.

While previous reports...