The Joint Commission has repealed its ban on the texting of orders for care, treatment, and services for all accredited hospitals and healthcare organizations as long as texting is done through a secure sign-on text messaging platform with several required features.
The ban was instated by the commission in 2011 over security concerns, but recent research suggests that platforms can be made secure and only authorized individuals can send and receive orders from their tablets and smartphones.
A recent study found that secure text messaging can help reduce hospital stays from 6 to 5.4 days within a month compared to traditional paging systems.
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Cite this: Reader Poll: Send Orders by Text Message? - Medscape - May 19, 2016.
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