Dive Brief:
- Two physicians at the Penn State College of Medicine have written a letter to JAMA Pediatrics arguing that the "endless daily emails" from their medical center, department and university are choking them.
- One doctor, Ian Paul, MD, said he received more than 2,000 mass emails during the 2009 to 2010 academic year.
- Working with Benjamin Levi, MD, PhD, the two doctors calculated that it would cost the medical center millions of dollars if the doctors read all of them.
Dive Insight:
These doctors have certainly pinpointed a serious problem. And lest you think they're exaggerating the cost of their time needed to read all of these emails, check out their math. As they see it, if 30 seconds were spent per email -- and that's a lowball number -- the annual cost per physician to read these mass distribution emails would be $1,641. And if 90 seconds were spent per email, the cost comes out to $4,923 per physician. This is definitely a good reason to think hard about who you're sending that email to before you hit send.