Cochrane: Email is now a popular method of communication
but it is not so commonly used in health care. We wanted to discover
how the use of email by healthcare professionals to communicate with
each other might affect patients, healthcare professionals and health
services. We were also interested in how it might fit into health
systems.
In this review, we found only one study that focused on the effects of healthcare professionals using email to communicate with each other. This study included 327 patients and 159 healthcare providers, and compared an email reminder for physicians with usual care. It found that healthcare professionals who received an email reminder were more likely to provide guideline-recommended osteoporosis treatment than those who did not, and this may or may not have improved patient care. We were unable to properly assess its impact on patient behaviours or actions as the results were mixed. The study did not measure how email affects health services, or whether email can cause harms. This evidence is current to August 2013.
As there is a lack of evidence for the effects of healthcare professionals using email to communicate with each other, high-quality research is needed to evaluate the use of email for this purpose. Future research should look at the costs of using email and take into account ongoing changes in technology.
In this review, we found only one study that focused on the effects of healthcare professionals using email to communicate with each other. This study included 327 patients and 159 healthcare providers, and compared an email reminder for physicians with usual care. It found that healthcare professionals who received an email reminder were more likely to provide guideline-recommended osteoporosis treatment than those who did not, and this may or may not have improved patient care. We were unable to properly assess its impact on patient behaviours or actions as the results were mixed. The study did not measure how email affects health services, or whether email can cause harms. This evidence is current to August 2013.
As there is a lack of evidence for the effects of healthcare professionals using email to communicate with each other, high-quality research is needed to evaluate the use of email for this purpose. Future research should look at the costs of using email and take into account ongoing changes in technology.
Authors' conclusions:
Only one study
was identified for inclusion, providing insufficient evidence for
guiding clinical practice in regard to the use of email for clinical communication between healthcare professionals. Future research should aim to utilise high-quality study designs that use the most recent developments in information technology, with consideration of the complexity of email as an intervention.