Patient–Provider Communication: Does Electronic Messaging Reduce Incoming Telephone Calls?

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Figure 1.
Monthly trends in patient panel sizes per clinic between February 2009 and February 2011. Clinic 1 is a commercial community-based health center, clinic 2 is a university-based health center, clinic 3 is a rural health center, and clinic 4 is a federally qualified health center.
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Figure 2.
Correlation between monthly rates of MyChart messages and rates of incoming telephone calls per 1000 patients from each clinic between February 2009 and February 2011. Smoothed locally weighted scatter-plot smoother (LOESS) curves are presented to highlight the trend over time. Thick solid lines denote the observed monthly incoming telephone calls. Thick dashed lines denote the observed monthly MyChart messages. Thin solid lines represent the smoothed LOESS curves of monthly incoming telephone calls. Thin dashed lines represent the smoothed LOESS curves of monthly MyChart messages. Smoothed LOESS curves are created by a locally weighted regression fitting technique that provides a generally smoother curve. The Spearman correlation coefficient is denoted by r and the P value for significance testing is denoted by p.

Table 1.

Clinic Rates of MyChart Messages and Incoming Telephone Calls per 1000 Patients per Month Between February 2009 and February 2011

	Clinic 1	Clinic 2	Clinic 3	Clinic 4
Clinic type	CHC	UHC	RHC	FQHC
Start date	February 2009	February 2009	April 2011	February 2011
Panel size (n)	11,878	11,179	7,538	11,010
MyChart messages^*	43	142	1	1
Telephone calls^{^†}	439	739	508	755
End date	June 1, 2014	June 1, 2014	June 1, 2014	June 1, 2014
Panel size (n)	10,889	18,243	9,685	11,868
MyChart messages^*	169	182	24	19
Telephone calls^{^†}	584	502	636	1002

↵* Number of patient-to-physician MyChart messages per 1000 patients per month.
↵† Number of incoming telephone calls received at a clinic per 1000 patients per month.
CHC, community-based health center; FQHC, federally quality health center; RHC, rural health center; UHC, university-based health center.