A study finds that patients are more likely to receive a response from GPs when they include the doctor’s name in an email message. Researchers analyzed patient communications sent through primary care email channels and assessed whether personalization correlated with whether replies were sent.
The research, conducted by a team at Harvard University in the United States, draws on a large dataset of about 3.6 million messages from more than 511,000 people. Both sources report the same core finding and dataset size, framing the result as an evidence-based link between how messages are addressed and the likelihood of receiving a reply. The coverage does not present additional details such as effect size, study location specifics beyond the U.S., or whether other message factors were controlled for, so those aspects are not clarified in the available excerpts.
Overall, the outlets emphasize the practical implication that email addressing conventions may influence provider response rates, based on the study’s large-scale analysis.
