Patients who include their doctor’s name in their messages are almost twice as likely to get a response as those who don’t, a study shows.
Researchers from Harvard University in the US analyzed 3.6 million patient messages from more than 511,000 people.
They found that the way people write to their doctors – whether length, formality, greeting, sentiment or punctuation – played a role in determining whether they received a response.
The findings come at a time when research shows almost half of Brits don’t know the name of their doctor.
A 2018 analysis found that only 41 percent of British adults said they had been able to get an appointment with their doctor within a year.
When they couldn’t see their doctor, 13 percent said they ignored the problem, leaving five percent in the hospital.
Patients hoping to contact their GP about non-urgent matters are now advised by the health service to complete a form via the NHS app.
The form is then reviewed by the surgical team and patients are expected to receive a face-to-face appointment over the phone, a text message in response to their query or advice to go to a pharmacy or other NHS service, according to the NHS website.
But the new study from the Harvard researchers suggests that the way a message is written – and not just its content – can influence how likely it is to be responded to.
A study has found that patients who include their doctor’s name in messages to them are almost twice as likely to receive a response as those who do not (stock photo)
Data from Mass General Brigham’s electronic medical record system showed that messages that began by addressing a doctor by name had a response rate of nearly 40 percent, compared to 26 percent for those without such a greeting.
Patients for whom English was not their native language, less well-educated patients and non-white patients were also found to be less likely to receive answers to their questions.
“These findings suggest that message writing style is a potential source of bias in message triage and could provide potential solutions to reduce the discrepancies,” said lead researcher Dr. Mitchell Tang.
