| Abstract
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The use of electronic mail is increasing a … The use of electronic mail is increasing among both physicians and patients,though there is limited information in the literature about how patients mightuse e-mail to communicate with their physician. In our faculty internalmedicine clinic, we have studied attitudes toward and access to e-mail amongpatients. A survey of 444 patients in our clinic showed a total of 46% ofpatients in the clinic have access to electronic mail, and 89% of those withelectronic mail, had access through their workplace. Fifty-one percent woulduse electronic mail all or most of the time to communicate with the clinic, ife-mail was available, and many of the communications that currently take placeby phone, could be replaced by e-mail. Barriers to use include privacy ofelectronic mail among patients that have access to e-mail in the workplace ,choosing the appropriate tasks for e-mail, and methods for efficiently triagingelectronic messages in the physician's clinic. tronic messages in the physician's clinic.
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