Opinion: Health Care Can Benefit from Text Messaging
Reported May 19, 2008
Technology thrills me and terrifies me at the same time, and I don’t think I’m the only baby boomer who feels that way. To say I’m technologically challenged would be an understatement. So when my friend Sue asked me to learn how to text message last summer so we could communicate while she was on a road trip, I hesitated, but only for a moment.
To be honest, I had an ulterior motive. During the hurricane siege of 2004 and 2005, I heard text messaging was superior to calling on a cell phone. But I needed validation. Sure enough, a major wireless provider reported that text messaging uses far less bandwidth and messages are more likely to get through. When many people try to make voice calls, the network becomes congested, and calls can be blocked. Text messages go through faster than voice calls and free up voice lines for emergency calls.
Sue showed me a few text messaging basics and I was on my way! Forget the book that came with my cell phone — it may as well have been in a foreign language. I soon found that text messaging was an easy, convenient way to get a quick message to someone while on a conference call, in a meeting, or in a noisy airport. Then there was the lingo, a strange new world of abbreviations to learn.
With my new text-messaging skills under my belt, I began to notice the exciting ways the method is being used in health care.
In England, some women receive text-message reminders to take their birth-control pills. In Australia, patients with HIV get text reminders to help them keep up with their complicated medication regimens. German researchers are experimenting with ways to use text messaging to help patients with bulimia.
Last year, Modern Healthcare reported that Mercy Health Center in Oklahoma City distributed electronic communicator pads to patients in its ICUs to help them communicate with staff members. Stroke patients or patients on ventilators, for example, can choose among 30 buttons for issues such as “What time is it?” or “I need my family” instead of trying to scribble on a piece of paper. The device, developed by a Delaware nurse, also has a full alphabet for patients who are able to type a message.
Healthcare staffing is another venue using text messaging to cut time and costs. Advantix, a California company, developed Text-a-Nurse software that helps staffing professionals transmit staffing requests to many nurses with a single text message.
And, in the hospital, some wireless nurse call systems send text messages to nurses and other caregivers, eliminating the need for noisy overhead paging and for nurses to walk up and down hallways to the nursing station.
So the next time someone says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, I can tell them that’s simply not true.