Modeling and Analysis of E-Visits in Primary Care

Many healthcare organizations have introduced e-visits to provide patient-physician communication through securing messages. E-visits can lead to significant savings with improved access to care, increased provider efficiency and patient satisfaction. In this paper, we introduce a quantitative model to study e-visits in primary care clinics. Analytical formulas to evaluate the system performance of primary care operation with e-visit are derived. System properties are investigated and comparisons of different operation policies between office and e-visits are carried out.