Using the Internet to rebuild patient-physician relationship
The American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgery. August 1999. Volume 46, No. 3.
Government bureaucracy, coupled with insurance company greed for
corporate profits, has significantly infringed on how we practiced
medicine in the past decade, and has significantly eroded the
patient-physician trust that was present in the past. We are spending
more time documenting and verifying, with significant pressure to see
more patients in a shorter time frame. Your Academy Board of Directors
wants to do everything in its power to help you reestablish better
patient-physician communications in order to give quality care in this
constricting, time-limited environment.
In an effort to maintain and enhance the patient-physician
partnership, the Academy board is about to take a bold step forward and
take the lead in providing current, credible and accurate information to
patients by using all possible means of communications. One of the most
valuable assets in which an orthopaedic surgeon can invest is the
informed patient. To this end, the Academy will invest the time and
technology to have a World Wide Web-based library in place this year
which both the orthopaedic surgeon and his or her patient can utilize.
Access to information specific to the patient's complaint will give
you and your patient an additional tool with which to work together and
help back the trust. We can use this technology in this way to enhance
the traditional physician-patient relationship, while allowing that
patient to take a more self-determined role in his or her care. An
additional benefit of having patients informed prior to their office
visit is that the face-to-face time with the patient can be better spent
exploring solutions to this patient's complaint, rather than spending
what little time there is explaining the problem.
This will be a significant financial investment, and a decision will
have to be made by the board in the next two months on proceeding with a
web-based library that will be filled with medical information written
for both the physician and his or her patients. Selected topics can be
linked to your own web site, for which the Academy would provide a
template, and to which you can refer your patients, even before the
office visit.
We also can provide the most up-to-date science-based data on
alternative musculoskeletal care as it becomes available.
Obviously, this resource may not be available to all our patients
initially, so the Academy will maintain our existing resources (e.g.
print materials, instructional videos, etc.) and will continue to make
these available to our membership for patient education.
Should your Board of Directors proceed on such a course of action?
Would you be willing to pay a modest monthly fee, or would you consider,
in exchange for that fee, advertising on that web site?
We welcome your input by logging on to the "Member
Services" section of the AAOS home page www.aaos.org.
