The doctor is in (Online): don't be surprised if the next time you talk to your health care professional it's through a videoconferencing setup, e-mail or a cell-phone text.

These days, clinicians are using electronic texts for quick consults, to send reminders to their patients about appointments and to keep a cellular "eye" on hospitalized patients and by receiving text alerts if their condition changes.

Meanwhile, some doctors have turned to video e-mails to deliver more personalized test results or to create educational videos to help information "stick" with patients. (23)

Patients are taking the lead as well. When the on-call neurologist could not figure out what was causing her three-week-old daughter's seizures, Tracey Blackman of Woodbury, CT, used her digital camera to document a seizure, then uploaded it onto an online photo service. She then contacted several experts around the country, sending them the link so they could "see" her daughter in the midst of a seizure.

"The higher level of communication allowed us to make a more educated decision of where to have her transferred (for specialty care)," she said. Once transferred, her daughter was put on monitoring equipment. Even though the baby's doctor was not in the hospital that night, he was able to access the results from home in real time. "By the time he saw us at her bedside the next morning, he already had a preliminary diagnosis," said Ms. Blackman.

There arc potential downsides to electronic medical communication. Elizabeth A. Scars, PhD, a workplace communications expert in Scottsdale, NY, finds the new methods of patient-physician communication "disheartening." She has a good friend who was driving in the car when his doctor called to inform him he had prostate cancer. "Did he remember any of the conversation? In time, I believe the lack of compassion generated by the new methods of communicating with each other will result in a host of other problems."

Even as physicians move into the future with technology, some are opting for new practice models that move them back into the past, when a family doctor had time to really get to know your family. Their solution: Concierge, or "boutique," practices.

Doctors in concierge practices, which tend to exist in metropolitan areas, significantly limit the number of patients they see, and typically charge patients an annual fee, often thousands of dollars, to join their practice. For that money, you get a doctor who is on call to you 24/7 (you probably get his or her cell phone number), intensive ...