<p> The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of email communication between providers and patients. The research also tests for the frequency of email usage in different provider settings. The following study performs a secondary data analysis on the Electronic Medical Records data retrieved from the (2009) National Ambulatory Medical Survey (NAMCS) to test for the following five hypotheses: (a) Use of email consults with patients will decrease in-patient visits, (b) Use of email consults will decrease telephone consults, (c) Hospital systems use higher email consults compared to that in solo practices and group practices, (d) Medical practices with an implemented electronic medical records system use higher email consults, and (e) Practices with greater private insurance reimbursements use higher email consults. A chi-squared analysis is performed to test for the association between the use of email consultations and its effects on other factors. The results showed that there is a reasonable association between use of email consults and hospital visits, email consults and telephone consults, email consults and implementation of electronic medical records (EMR), and email consults and the type of payers. On the contrary, there was no significant association between email consults and the type of medical practice. Although electronic communication can improve efficiency, accessibility and quality of healthcare, not every medical practice has integrated it into their care delivery.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:1522637 |
| Date | 04 May 2013 |
| Creators | Kodali, Parnika S. |
| Publisher | California State University, Long Beach |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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