<p>Patients with Type II diabetes are happier with the quality of their care when they can use secure electronic messaging to communicate with their physicians, a study by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville has found.</p><p>Secure messaging with a patient portal "facilitates access to care and delivery of care, enhances patient satisfaction, and is associated with certain clinical outcomes" including improved control of blood-sugar levels, researchers concluded in the study, recently published online in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.</p><p>Patients also regularly used secure messaging to send their doctors clinical information, the study found, and thus collaborated in decisions about their own care.</p><p>The patients all used portals to their electronic health record, some more frequently than others. While the No. 1 use by participants who frequently used the portals was to view medical records, the No. 3 use was secure messaging to physicians, reported by 63 percent of those patients.</p><p><a href="http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/secure-messaging-improves-quality-care-diabetics/2012-12-21">Keep reading...</a></p>