Click to play: YouTube and similar sites have more doctors getting ready for their close-ups
So Dr. Jacobs began making video e-mails, giving patients the results himself, and explaining them in more detail. If the news is bad, Dr. Jacobs sends a video requesting that the patient make an appointment.
Dr. Jacobs has been sending video e-mails for about seven months. He said he does it because his patients like it, not only because they can see him talk about their test results, but also because they like how tech-savvy the video e-mail makes him appear.
"They say, 'Thanks,' and then, 'How did you do that?' " Dr. Jacobs said.
That "how" question is one a small but growing number of physicians are trying to figure out, as they incorporate the use of Internet video into their practices.
Doctors are creating video blogs, or posting video of lectures or procedures, or as Dr. Jacobs is doing, adding video to e-mail. Some are posting video to their own Web sites, to YouTube or to doctor- or health-specific sites.
Creating Web video doesn't have to be expensive. Dr. Jacobs pays $9 per month for his video e-mail system and made a one-time purchase of a webcam, which can sit atop or near the computer and feed video straight into it. A webcam can cost as little as $25.
Nina Sossamon-Pogue, with BenefitFocus, a Charleston, S.C.-based health IT company that recently launched the open-source video site icyou.com, said video is a way to make things easier for patients to understand what the physician wants to convey.
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