You cannot use straight email to communicate patient info. You have to send them a link to a site behind a login, which is a barrier to adoption. Even if that's

You cannot use straight email to communicate patient info. You have to send them a link to a site behind a login, which is a barrier to adoption. Even if that's OK, just sending an email to someone from, say, a psych clinic would expose them as a patient, which is not good either. You also cannot really indicate urgency. There is a difference between appointment reminders and "hey, your test came back positive". There are also some things that you prefer to discuss as you may have follow up questions. If your doctor calls you to tell you that you have HIV or cancer, you are going to ask questions. You don't want to get that news via SMS or email. Basically, routine reminders and test results are fine over a secure site with email notifications, but for lots of other things email is less than appropriate.