Physician Self-Reported Log on Non–E-Mail and E-mail Messages from Patients
| Log Entries | E-mail Physician | Control Physician | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week | E-1 | E-2 | E-3 | E-4 | Average | C-1 | C-2 | C-3 | C-4 | Average | |
| Number of non–e-mail messages | 1 | 15 | 41 | 79 | 51 | 52 | 33 | 72 | |||
| 2 | 46 | 47 | 80 | 60 | 45 | 28 | 31 | 52 | |||
| 3 | 32 | 28 | 103 | 31 | 21 | 57 | |||||
| Average | 31 | 38.6 | 87.3 | 47.3 | 51.1 | 39.3 | 40.3 | ||||
| Average time/day spent addressing messages (in minutes) | 1 | 11 | 29 | 36.2 | 60 | 20 | 27.4 | 28 | 85 | ||
| 2 | 15 | 35 | 63.4 | 56 | 20.4 | 19 | 29.2 | 50 | |||
| 3 | 10 | 29 | 40.6 | 62 | 7.6 | 8.7 | 55 | 50 | |||
| Average | 12 | 31 | 46.7 | 59.3 | 37.3 | 22.5 | 18.3 | 37.4 | 61.7 | 35 | |
| Average time per message (in minutes) | 1 | 3.7 | 3.5 | 2.3 | 5.9 | 1.9 | 2.8 | 4.2 | 5.9 | ||
| 2 | 1.6 | 3.7 | 3.9 | 4.7 | 2.3 | 3.4 | 4.7 | 5.0 | |||
| 3 | 1.56 | 5.1 | 1.9 | 6.0 | 1.8 | 4.8 | 3.8 | ||||
| Average | 2.3 | 4.1 | 2.7 | 5.5 | 3.7 | 2.0 | 4.6 | 4.9 | 3.8 | ||
| Number of e-mails in 6 months | 80 | 121 | 28 | 70 | |||||||
| Number of e-mails per week | 0 to 1 | 1 to 4 | 0 to 5 | 0 to 1 | |||||||
| Approximate time per e-mail (in minutes) | 1 to 3 | 1 to 3 | 1 to 2 | 1 to 5 | |||||||