Kaiser dials up
e-mail plan

In a few months, Kaiser Permanente patients will be able to look up lab tests and ask their doctor questions by logging on to the Internet.

They will not have to take time off from work to go to a clinic or sit waiting for a phone call to contact a doctor.

Hawaii is the first of eight Kaiser regions to set up an Internet system giving patients e-mail access to doctors and nurses and parts of their medical record.

Dr. Kate Christensen, Oakland, Calif.-based medical director for Kaiser's online system, kp.org, said the entire Kaiser family of 8 million members, 10,000 doctors and thousands of staff members will have Internet communication access within two to three years.

It is starting with Kaiser Permanente-Hawaii because it already has systems in place needed for online access, she said.

Christensen was here for a meeting the past week on electronic messaging with Kaiser-Hawaii medical, legal, nursing, ethics and other representatives.

She said there is always concern when something new is introduced, but she thinks doctors "will find it a boon. ... It will make the practice of medicine more efficient and more fun."

Health plans and medical groups across the country are turning to e-mail communication to improve efficiency and control costs. Many charge patients and pay doctors for online exchanges.

But Dr. Timothy Kim, who practices internal medicine at Kaiser-Hawaii, said Kaiser does not plan to charge patients or pay doctors to respond to e-mail. "It's just another venue to interact with us as providers," he said. "We still have face-to-face visits and telephone conversations."

It is a service members want, he said, because if they have a simple question, such as whether they should continue a certain medication, they will not have to play phone tag or make an appointment to see the doctor.

To access the system, members will have to sign on to the kp.org Web site and obtain a password, he said. "They'll be behind our firewalls for security purposes." They will be able to get a list of providers they have seen so they can message them, he said.

Messages will go to Kaiser's electronic medical records to become part of the patient's medical chart and forwarded for response, Kim said.

The doctor can decide if he or she wants to take the message or whether someone else can handle it, said family medicine doctor Peggy Latare, among others who attended the planning meeting.

Registered members also will be able to send messages or get information from the pharmacist, she said, describing the system as "pretty flexible."

She said logistics and designs will be finalized at a follow-up session at the end of the month, and it is hoped to have the new system in use by the end of the summer.

Latare said Kaiser's electronic medical records are being rolled out at its clinics across the state. That project will be finished in June and will be the structure for the messaging system, she said.

"When patients go into the kp.org account with a secure password, they can also look at parts of their chart," she said, including current appointments and a summary of what has happened to the patient.

"The good thing," Kim said, "is we are going to learn the system along with them (members). We already have a lot of features on the Web site that are very nice for members."

He said kp.org has a lot of good health information that is accessible to anyone, whether a Kaiser member or not.

"It's pretty exciting for me," Latare said, noting that "the young folks out there, all they know how to do is text-message. They don't really like to use phones very much, so this is going to be really a great way to connect with members in those age groups."