Lehigh doctor to provide information to patients using e-mail

Dr. Elmer Toro uses his “tablet computer” to record information on his patients. He keeps all medical records on a server and can access any of his patients’ information in seconds. Behind him are some of the paper records he kept when he first went into practice in Lehigh. They are all on a computerized server. Photo by MEL TOADVINE
Dr. Elmer Toro who practices general medicine and dermatology in Lehigh Acres may be the only doctor who is now asking his patients when they come in to give them them their email addresses.
“It’s a new practice we have begun,” Toro said. “We record it and cross off the information on the sign-in list for privacy.
“What we’re planning to do is start using email for sending our patients important information designed just for them,” Toro said.
The physician’s office is at 391 Lee Blvd., and he has been practicing in Lehigh since May of 2003. He is also a member of the board at Lehigh Regional Medical Center.
He was one of the first doctors in Lehigh who has all medical records of patients safely filed on a computer server in his office.
“I began doing that about a year or so after I began my practice,” Toro said.
The information is stored on the server in the office and it updates itself every morning before Toro comes to work.
He also uses a “tablet” computerized device and has been doing so for several years.
On this tablet computer, he has all the information about a patient and when you visit him, he calls up your name and can in an instant see what medications he has prescribed, past blood pressure checks and any other information, such as X-rays and information from CAT scans.
As he talks to his patient, he can review what took place at the last visit. One of the first thing a patients has to do when he or she visits a doctor is be weighed and have his or her blood pressure taken. All that information is put into Toro’s tablet computer which also files it to the server.
He doesn’t have to dig up records in stacks of folders in his office as other doctors are still doing.
“I wanted to begin this as soon as I could when I began my practice so I would not have a ton of records,” Toro said. There are some records in his office of the first year or so before he began using computers for record savings. Those folders have been transferred to the computer and can be assessed at a second’s notice.
“The email system also provides the patient a way to send back email about appointments or any other general information they may want to give,” Toro said.
“What I like is that with all the new medical information that is being made available today about all kinds of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stress – you name it, and I can pull information off the Internet in layman’s terms and send it on to a patient.
“I know each of my patients well and I am constantly looking for new information and new ways to treat them. This is information I can share with them through email,” he said.
He said security is of the upmost importance and all email will be sent directly to one patient. There will be no listings of other patients shown on the email, again, he said all for privacy.
“Please understand that email does not replace communication at the office, but rather can be used to enhance it. In order toprovide this service, I am providing this policy as a guide to email in my practice,” Toro has emailed those who have signed up for the service
He said email is not to be used for urgent matters. Turnaround times will depend on when he access his email, and that can range from a day to a week.
Patients should be aware that I may not access email while on vacation, but I plan to have a vacation message on auto-reply.
“As with other Internet-based programs, email may entail some privacy risks. Should you choose to communicate with me by email, please be aware of this. Do not use email for very sensitive – for example, mental health issues. Please put the category in the subject line – example: medical advice, problem with medication, etc.,” he said.
He asks that patients put their first and last name in the body of the message and they their writing be concise and not to use the email for non-medical matters.
“I hope that over time I will expand the use of email to include links to helpful sites specific to your individual needs and eventually constructing a web page that will include a variety of links as well as the ability to schedule/ cancel appointments without having to call the office,” he said.
With his tablet in front of him, he can go back for months or years now to look up what condition the patient may have been in and what medications he or she was taking at a certain time.
“It’s amazing. It’s at my fingertips and I can access information instantly,” he said.
His wife, Katie, is his nurse and receptionist. She is the one who greets you when you come in and asks for your email address and explains what the plans are.
She said many older people do not have computers and some of them that do, don’t know how to use them. She also said a lot of young people don’t visit the doctor that often because they are generally in good health. But they are the ones that Toro wants to reach, too.
Many doctors in Lehigh and in the county have not yet gone to electronic records keeping, mainly because they have thousands of folders that would have to be transferred to electronic files and they would have to pay someone to do the work which could be very expensive.
Jose Morillo, the CEO of Lehigh Regional Medical Center said he doesn’t think a lot of doctors in Lehigh have gone as far as Toro has so far, but he advises physicians to try to get patients’ information filed electronically.
The hospital, Morillo said, records everything from the ER electronically and X-rays and other test results can be sent to individual physicians electronically.
All hospitals in the country are expected to have all information on patients saved electronically within the next few years and Morillo said the company that owns Lehigh Regional Medical Center is now searching for the right system.
Meanwhile, Toro said he has just begun asking for email addresses of his patients.
“I probably have around 200 so far. My goal is to start when I get around 500 people signed up. I know there will be some who won’t do it for their own various reasons. But I tell them their emails will be secure and all privacy provisions will take place.
Morillo said he believes Dr. Imitaz Ahmad on Lee Blvd., has also computerized all of his medical records. A call to Ahmad’s office confirmed that the doctor is keeping all of his patients, too, in computers. There may be others in Lehigh who are also preserving their records now on computers.
Toro may be the only doctor in Lehigh however who is using a tablet computer each time he visits with a patient. In addition to recording all information, he can can use a stylus and send faxes of records to other doctors or to a hospital anywhere in the world and he can retrieve such information from anywhere.
Toro admits that he spends 15 to 20 hours at home at night an on weekends researching medical information.
“When I see something that I know would benefit one of my patients, that is when I would email that patient,” Toro said.
When he leaves work he takes his tablet with him and all the information on his server is saved on it so if anything were to happen to the server, all information is safe and secure. But there have been no problems, he said, and he credits Ethx in Fort Myers who have developed his electronic records system. The firm is owned by Hamilton Agnew and the technical who works with Toro is Thomas Merrick.
“I just want to give them praise for the excellent work they do to support our systems here,” Toro said.
He said patients can be assured that no personal information will be emailed out so they don’t have to worry about their email accounts revealing private information if their email is seen by someone else.
Morillo said Toro is way ahead of many others in this avenue of preserving all medical records electronically and using email to keep his patients up to date with the latest information.
Toro said he is also planning a home page on the Internet but doesn’t expect to have it up and online for several months. It will give patients links and avenues for keeping healthy. And it will be used in other ways, not thought of yet, until the home page is developed, he said.