February 21, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
A nonprofit medical practice in Maine allows patients to use the Internet to ask their doctors questions, schedule appointments, request prescription renewals, and search for sound medical data.
When Martin’s Point Health Care, in Portland, introduced the Patient’s Personal Points service at its Brunswick office in August 1999, more than 500 patients signed up in the first three months. By October of the following year, all four of the organization’s offices were participating. Currently, 4,800 of the organization’s 54,000 patients have signed up for the service.
Martin’s Point started the system because its medical staff had begun to receive e-mails from patients, and wanted to receive and respond to those requests on a system that offered more security and confidentiality than e-mail. Doctors also noticed that some patients were bringing unreliable health information that they had found on the Internet with them to their appointments. And, says Amy Weinschenk, the organization’s director of marketing and communications, the online system was a way for Martin’s Point to differentiate itself from other medical practices that it competes with for patients.
Patients use the Ask My Doctor feature more than any other feature on the system. Questions to physicians make up 62 percent of the 315 online requests the organization receives each month.
Offering ways to contact doctors online has made it easier for some patients to ask questions they forgot to raise during their visits, follow up to make sure they understand a doctor’s instructions, and bring up sensitive issues, such as depression or alcoholism, that they might not feel comfortable discussing in person, says Ms. Weinschenk.
During the work week, Martin’s Point promises to answer patients’ medical questions and requests for appointments within 24 hours and renew prescriptions within 48 hours. Because medical questions asked via the Internet are handled the same way as those asked over the telephone — nurses respond to patients after having discussed the issue with the doctor — the new system doesn’t add to doctors’ workloads. In addition, being able to get back to patients within 24 hours rather than immediately on the telephone allows other staff members to accomplish their duties more efficiently.
To get there: Go to http://www.martinspoint.org.
