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American Morning

Can E-Mailing Your Doctor Cut Down On Your Office Visits?

Aired June 07, 2002 - 08:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Can e-mailing with your doctor cut down on your office visits? A new poll now finding that patients like the option, but many doctors are not quite sure that e-mail is efficient or effective. Let's talk about it with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the man who knows all when it comes to this.

Sanjay, good morning to you.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There's no question, this is a sort of an interesting problem. You have patients who have sort of simple problems. They perhaps can go to the drugstore and buy an over-the-counter medication, get that problem taken care of, then you have patients who have more serious problems. They need to go and see a doctor, maybe get some imaging studies, things like that.

But there are a lot of patients that fall in between. They don't quite need to see their doctor, and it's more serious than going to the drugstore. E-mail might fill that gap, actually being able to communicate with your doctor that way.

For instance, if you were recently started on a blood pressure medication, and all you needed to do was to get your pressure checked and adjust the medication, perhaps you could get it checked, e-mail the results, get the results back, and adjust your medication accordingly, and that would save you a trip, save the doctor some time. In fact, it's something catching on. In fact, let's hear from a doctor and patient and a doctor who have been through this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was busy at work and wasn't able to make an appointment or get away and couldn't find any other way to do it, and thought, well, why not do it this way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's an issue of efficiency, it's an issue of empowering the patient, giving them access, and it's an issue of allowing me to have more patients who actually come into the office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Ninety percent of the patients say they would like to communicate with their doctors via e-mail, and a third of them say they'd even pay more for it. Only 15 percent of doctors said they're ready for that change, Bill.

GUPTA: Sanjay, thanks, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Doctors, possibly going electronic.

Thank you, Sanjay.

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