Hand Written Letter or Email in Health Care
Sometimes I use a hand written letter or card to write to someone. This usually concerns live events such as the birth of a child or the loss of a loved one, the death of a patient or spouse. To me a hand written letter or card seems more personal.
Patients increasingly use email to contact me. In the case of requests for medication or a change of appointment I readily answer their questions and requests. Sometimes patients write long emails with questions related to the treatment or advise on difficult issues. I usually respond by asking them if they would like to advance their appointment. These questions are complicated and not solved by a short written answer, sometimes a written answer can not be of enough help.
Why is this?
As far as important live events are concerned the preference for a hand written letter or card is mostly because a hand written letter or card is more personal. Moreover, with a letter or card there’s also an exchange of material. This is easy to save and file for future remembrance. A letter or card is also written with more laboring. Besides the writing itself it also requires reflection, attention to form and correctness, and careful composition of the letter. Letters can have a tone easily communicated when hand written. Finally not everyone is connected to the world wide web, especially elderly.
In the case of patients contacting me with email for short questions such as medication or appointments it’s a form of rapid, convenient way of communicating. This rapid impersonal and convenient way of communicating limits it’s use for more complex requests and interactions, at least to my opinion.
What do you think? about hand written letters and email communication? Or cast your vote:
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Science Report » Blog Archive » Hand Written Letter or Email in Health Care
October 9, 2009 @ 8:31 am
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October 9, 2009 @ 5:21 pm
I never use email with patients or clinical colleagues.
I dictate letters which my secretary types and I sign, in ink, having a fondness for fountain pens.
This has a few advantages.
– I don’t get deluged with emails that involve clinical decision making, without having adequate information
– I have more time to see patients so have no waiting list (and two patients referred today were seen today)
– Communication is clear, being typed, so it’s not up to someone to decipher my hand writing
– Communication is reproduceable and transferable, since clinical records effectively are Word documents, so can readily be printed or faxed to other clinicians or social workers or colleagues or other hospitals’ wards
– Working with dictation, my secretary then types up letters promptly, the day I see the patient, so all information is shared to all parties on the day the patient’s seen
If I hand wrote mail it’d be slower and scrawled. Email would tie me to the office even more. For me, and my foibles, typed letters is the best way to work!
October 9, 2009 @ 7:45 pm
That’s good service, in our hospital it usually takes two weeks for the typed letter to be sent if I am lucky, which I usually am;) thanks for the clear comment, take care Dr Shock
The Forgotten Beauty of Hand-Written Letters | Health for the Whole Self
January 10, 2011 @ 11:34 am
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