Communication Paper

Communication Paper

Cheryl Etchison

HCS/490

Cindy Perkins

January 13, 2014

Communication between consumers and their healthcare providers has gone through an evolution of sorts. Gone are the days where doctors make house calls. With the developments in technology there are more ways to keep the lines of communication open with your healthcare provider. Healthcare has even branched out into something called telemedicine, which means that through this sort of communication patients can be diagnosed and have prescriptions ordered without even setting foot inside a clinic or formal doctor’s office. Aiding in this is the electronic medical records. Conventional paper medical records have become a thing of the past with the development and implementation of the electronic medical record.

Consumers can and are being given access to their own medical records in order to verify the information. Having this access helps keep the consumer informed about the information contained in their records. Effective communication between consumers and their providers is said to positively influence the behaviors of patients and their well-being and this includes the satisfaction they find with their care. Electronic medical records can be accessed through secured and verified access facility websites. Through these websites patients or consumers can set doctors’ appointments, send messages to healthcare providers and see the notes about doctor visits and lab test results. There have been studies that show that only low percentages of patients used email to communicate with their providers even though they had expressed interest. Benefits of using email for communication with providers increased access to the provider, improved the quality of care, convenience and the overall feeling comfortable enough to ask the provider questions that might normally get missed in an office appointment. There are also barriers to using...