Many physicians fail to invest time and money in marketing and promoting their practice. However, marketing their practice is a wise investment that helps ensure financial stability and allows them to reach short- and long-term goals. There are many marketing and promotional tools that, used effectively, can provide huge returns on investment. In the past, psychiatrists had casual conversations over lunch in the doctors’ lounge, which facilitated referrals. Psychiatrists no longer regularly run into their referral physicians; consequently, they have to seek alternative ways to outreach with referral sources.

Professional burnout, with its attendant detrimental effects on career satisfaction and success, is an issue of concern for many practicing psychiatrists. Burnout is a work-related syndrome distinct from depression. In the professional literature, burnout is characterized by 3 adverse characteristics: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (or cynicism), and a sense of personal inefficiency or impeded accomplishment.

E-mail, instant messaging (IM), video chat, and social networks—notably blogs and online communities such as Facebook and Twitter—have emerged as essential business and social communication tools.1 Electronic communication is speedy and efficient, crossing continents in seconds (e-mail) or, in some cases, nanoseconds (as with Google Wave and Skype technologies).

In today’s practice of medicine, it is highly unlikely that any physician entering into or already in practice will remain in the analog age without some type of health information technology. Computers today are just as important to the psychiatric office as was the proverbial couch, and they play a central role in data collection, storage, and retrieval in various domains such as scheduling, billing, and record keeping. For the novice or even for the experienced purveyor of electronic goods, to evaluate the numerous technologies available for their relevance to digital practice can be rather daunting. This article serves as a guide to the practicing psychiatrist to determine what technologies will be most useful—if not mission-critical.