Is Clinician Text Paging Safe for Patients?

Since the introduction of alphanumeric pagers nearly 3 decades ago, text paging has permitted efficient communication streams between clinicians. To examine the quality of text paging, investigators sampled 575 text paging messages to or from clinicians using dedicated messaging devices within an academic tertiary care hospital internal medicine service and performed qualitative analyses. (Note: This study did not address cell phone text messaging.)

Texts were sent predominantly by nonphysicians (78%) to physicians (75%). Many text messages lacked clarity, introduced possible misunderstandings, or conferred risk for delays in care. Ninety-three percent of text messages were deemed to be nonemergent, but the level of urgency was conveyed in <…