The common perception is that e-mailing your physician and becoming better informed via reading Internet information leads to improved health outcomes.
A recent study suggests otherwise, showing that increased consumerism leads to lower perceived quality:
Consumerist patients place additional demands on their doctors’ time, thus imposing a negative externality on other patients . . . Data from a large national survey of physicians shows that high levels of consumerism are associated with lower perceived quality.
In other words, the time spent to answer questions garnered from the Internet leads to less time for other patients.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. Doctors are only paid for patients seen in the office. Re-aligning incentives to include spending time with the patient, or communicating via e-mail, would benefit everybody involved.
Related posts:
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- Health Care Reform, From the Ground Up
- "Poor-quality medicine is being rewarded; high-quality medicine is being punished"
- Does paying for quality actually work?
- Why today’s quality measures do not improve health outcomes
- What is the biggest challenge for health professionals over the next decade?
- The dangers of quality
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{ 1 comment }
I’m going to call bullshit on this one Kevin. You only wrote half the story. It was a theoritical model for time spent with the patients and a survey of physicians’ on perceived quality.
Based on the abstract, there’s no conclusion about patient satisfaction, access to care or actual outcomes discussed. Even though your conclusions are progressive, the storys’ implication is that more information is bad – tough pill for a medical blogger to shallow.
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