Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
Appl Clin Inform. 2021 Mar;12(2):259-265. doi: 10.1055/s-0041-1726117. Epub 2021 Mar 31.
During the initial days of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, hospital-wide practices rapidly evolved, and hospital employees became a critical population for receiving consistent and timely communication about these changes.
We aimed to rapidly implement enterprise text messaging as a crisis communication intervention to deliver key COVID-related safety and practice information directly to hospital employees.
Utilizing a secure text-messaging platform already routinely used in direct patient care, we sent 140-character messages containing targeted pandemic-related updates to on-duty hospital employees three times per week for 13 weeks. This innovation was evaluated through the analysis of aggregate "read" receipts from each message. Effectiveness was assessed by rates of occupational exposures to COVID-19 and by two cross-sectional attitudinal surveys administered to all text-message recipients.
On average, each enterprise text message was sent to 1,997 on-duty employees. Analysis of "read" receipts revealed that on average, 60% of messages were consistently read within 24 hours of delivery, 34% were read in 2 hours, and 16% were read in 10 minutes. Readership peaked and fell in the first week of messaging but remained consistent throughout the remainder of the intervention. A survey administered after 2 weeks revealed that 163 (79%) users found enterprise texts "valuable," 152 (73%) users would recommend these texts to their colleagues, and 114 (55%) users preferred texts to email. A second survey at 9 weeks revealed that 109 (80%) users continued to find texts "valuable." Enterprise messaging, in conjunction with the system's larger communication strategy, was associated with a decrease in median daily occupational exposure events (nine events per day premessaging versus one event per day during messaging).
Enterprise text messages sent to hospital-employee smartphones are an efficient and effective strategy for urgent communications. Hospitals may wish to leverage this technology during times of routine operations and crisis management.
在 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行的最初几天，医院范围内的实践迅速发展，医院员工成为接收有关这些变化的一致和及时沟通的关键人群。
我们旨在迅速实施企业短信作为危机沟通干预措施，将与 COVID 相关的关键安全和实践信息直接发送给医院员工。
利用已在直接患者护理中常规使用的安全短信平台，我们每周向在职医院员工发送 3 次、每次 140 个字符的消息，其中包含有针对性的大流行相关更新。通过对每条消息的汇总“已读”收据进行分析，对这一创新进行了评估。通过 COVID-19 职业暴露率和向所有短信收件人进行的两项横断面态度调查来评估有效性。
平均而言，每条企业短信发送给 1997 名在职员工。对“已读”收据的分析显示，平均而言，60%的消息在发送后 24 小时内被持续阅读，34%在 2 小时内阅读，16%在 10 分钟内阅读。阅读高峰出现在消息传递的第一周，但在整个干预过程中保持一致。在 2 周后进行的一项调查显示，163（79%）位用户认为企业短信“有价值”，152（73%）位用户会向同事推荐这些短信，114（55%）位用户更喜欢短信而不是电子邮件。在 9 周时进行的第二次调查显示，109（80%）位用户仍然认为短信“有价值”。企业短信与系统更大的沟通策略相结合，与中位数每日职业暴露事件（消息传递前每天 9 次事件与消息传递期间每天 1 次事件）减少相关。
发送给医院员工智能手机的企业短信是一种紧急沟通的高效、有效策略。在常规运营和危机管理期间，医院可能希望利用这项技术。
