VA's Message System Improves Patient-physician Relationship

As the Department of Veterans Affairs prepared this year to offer up physicians' e-mails to patients for questions and follow-ups, Dr. Dzung Le could only groan... "I have a heavy day already, and now you're adding more work to me," he remembered saying to higher-ups. "How can I have more time to do this?" But 10 months after the launch of the VA's secure messaging system, Le is a convert. His doomsday scenario turned out to be imagined, and he now extols the system to patients to get more signed up.

"It has actually made things more efficient," said Le, who leads the ambulatory care department in Fort Worth. "Communicating through the secure messaging system allows me to respond to people when it is convenient for me, and it has reduced the number of phone calls I get. I also think it's better for the patients because they're on the go, too."...