Patients, physicians, and the Internet.

Washington-based Group Health Cooperative has been providing personalized services to patients over the Internet for a year through the MyGroupHealth member portal. We continue to refine our communications to meet the needs of our patients online in the absence of experience comparable to that which we have gained in 54 years of in-person and telephone interactions.

Self-management support in a web-based medical record: a pilot randomized controlled trial.

Physicians were much less likely than other primary care team members to use a Web-based application to counsel patients with diabetes about behavior change.

Patient satisfaction with a Web-based patient-provider messaging system implemented across a statewide delivery system (Group Health Cooperative).

Since 1999, Group Health Cooperative has been developing and implementing Web services to improve patient access to health care. Among these services are a patient-provider secure messaging system and online pharmacy refills. A survey of patients using these services demonstrated the value of these tools in enhancing the patients' ability to manage their health care and the positive effects it could have on member retention.