Electronic Communications with Patients: Improved Safety, Improved Access, or Electronic Leash-Principles and Prospects

摘要

Wong and colleagues suggest that Maimonides implies physicians should be available to their patients "...at all times," via cell phones. That could occasion an editorial of its own about the divine omnipresence called for, the reality that we are not available even to ourselves at all times, and that such dependence seems both impossible and damaging to a patient's sense of self-efficacy and independence. Their rhetorical device is used to introduce a discussion of cell phones, a recent but certainly not the last medium for doctor-patient communication. The authors touch upon how the core principles of communication are modified by telephonic communication and further so by cell phone use; their comments also pertain to the role of other electronic communications like e-mail, pagers, answering services, intercoms, and devices like electro-physiologic monitors.