Electronic Media and Patient Privacy

WEST CHESTER, Pa. - July 15, 2013 - PRLog -- Over the past several years there has been a trend to try and push physicians to communicate electronically with patients. This means of communication raises several interesting issues — all of which which could be topics unto themselves – but I wanted to ruminate, and have the readers of this article ruminate – over this one particular issue: are these communications really private?

Let’s take a step back, one of the most important aspects of the physician – patient relationship is privacy and confidentiality. Patients need to know that what they discuss with their physician is held in the strictest of confidence. This allows the development of trust and hopefully good patient care.

As we all know, electronic communications are not confidential. Use of email, texting or other electronic means all leave an electronic footprint, as it were.  Using the delete button, does not, repeat, does not get rid of the electronic communication. These communication(s) are all stored on your hard drive, your server, or other locations.  Recent events, ala Snowden and the NSA, further compound this issue, in that potentially all of our electronic communications are being stored. Which means that the note your sent to your Doctor and the Doctors response is no longer just a communication between you and your Doctor.

Now back to patient confidentiality, several questions come to mind: does communicating with a patient via electronic means violate patient – physician confidentiality? If we know that these communications will be stored outside the medical record and potentially accessible by others, can a physician ethically communicate with a patient electronically? Does the patient have the right to waive this right and allow electronic communications? If electronic communication occurs between a patient and physicians, and we know these are not confidential, has the patient waived their right to all confidentiality?