Follow-up after a pediatric emergency department visit: telephone versus e-mail?

The Internet has become in recent years an unlimited source of health-related information and revolutionized health information access. Follow-up after an emergency department (ED) visit is important for continuity of care but is difficult to achieve. We conducted this study to determine whether e-mail could become a method for a follow-up contact after leaving the pediatric ED.

Over a 2-month period, parents who had a telephone line and e-mail access and whose child was discharged from the ED at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto were randomized to receive an e-mail or a telephone follow-up. Main outcome measure was the response rates by parents to the telephone or e-mail.

A total of 265 (79%) of the 337 families who were approached had Internet access, and the majority (75%) check e-mails at least once a day. Eighty-seven percent (85 of 98) and 53% (53 of 100) of the families who were contacted by telephone or e-mail, respectively, were reached within an average of 17 and 46 hours, respectively. Fourteen percent of families from the study population were unreachable either by telephone or by e-mail. Most (57%) parents who did not respond to the e-mail did not check or did not remember reading the e-mail or had trouble with access. Ten percent of the e-mails were undeliverable.

The telephone is better than e-mail as a follow-up channel with families of children who visit the pediatric ED. The main reason for not responding to e-mails is "technical problems." E-mail could be a mean for follow-up contact for part of our patient population, especially for nonurgent purposes.