Press Releases: Northwest
May 30, 2007
Kaiser Permanente members go online for more convenient health care
Nearly 113,000 patients in Oregon and Washington e-mail doctors, order prescriptions and view lab results on secure website
PORTLAND, Ore. – Mitch Zahn used to wait several days for the results of his lab tests. Now he can get them within hours simply by logging onto his computer. When the 48-year old diabetic patient has a question about his blood sugar numbers or medications he sends his doctor an e-mail and usually hears back the same day. "I love it," says Zahn, a busy state human services worker. "It eliminates me having to take time off work for a doctor's appointment."
Sara Freedman uses Kaiser Permanente's secure website to order prescriptions, check her children's immunization records and to e-mail their pediatrician. That feature came in handy during a recent trip to Hawaii when her 4-year-old developed a large sore below his lip and smaller sores on his chin. Because he had experienced the same symptoms before, she knew it was an infection called impetigo and that her son needed antibiotics. But the doctor was thousands of miles away in Portland. "Luckily, my husband had his laptop. We e-mailed Aaron's doctor. He got back to us right away, and within two hours we had picked up the prescription."
"Freedman and Zahn are among nearly 113,000 Kaiser Permanente members in Oregon and Washington using Kaiser Permanente's secure website to help manage their health care. Since kaiserpermanente.org was introduced two years ago, that number has grown every month.."
A Harris interactive poll conducted for The Wall Street Journal in 2005 showed that 80 percent of Americans with access to the internet are interested in communicating with their physicians via e-mail. Yet, according to another recent survey by the Center for Studying Health System Change, only about one in four doctors offers the service.
Part of the reason for that discrepancy is the way doctors are paid. In the traditional fee-for-service system, doctors have no incentive to offer e-mail because insurance companies only reimburse them for office visits. But integrated health systems like Kaiser Permanente pay doctors a salary, and so can offer e-mail and other online services as part of their total benefit package. And unlike fee-for-service practices, Kaiser Permanente offers secure online services to all patients at no extra charge.
Other reasons doctors have been slow to adopt online systems is the fear that they will be inundated with e-mail, that patients will ask complicated questions, and that it will take too much of their time, says David Schmidt, a Kaiser Permanente pediatrician who helped design www.kaiserpermanente.org.
For the most part Schmidt says the fears are unfounded. Patients rarely abuse e-mail and if their health issue is too complicated to handle over the computer, the doctor can always ask the patient to come in for an office visit. .
"Answering e-mail does take some extra time, and it is more work in some ways, but it's worth it," says Schmidt, "because it enhances the relationship with patients and empowers them to share in their health care decisions."
Schmidt predicts that within ten years most offices will offer e-mail. "No one would ever think of starting a medical practice without a telephone. In the future, they won't think of starting one without giving patients e-mail access to their doctor."
Kaiser Permanente is America's leading integrated health care organization. Founded in 1945, the organization serves the health needs of more than 8.7 million people nationwide. More than 485,000 people in Oregon and Southwest Washington receive their health care from Kaiser Permanente. For more information, visit the Kaiser Permanente News Center, http://xnet.kp.org/newscenter.
