Abstract
BackgroundHealth care providers are an important target audience for public health emergency preparedness, response and recovery communications. Short Message Service or text messaging to cell phones may be a promising supplemental or alternative technique for reaching health care providers with time-sensitive public health information. However, studies to date have yet to investigate the message content and formatting requirements of providers with respect to public health alerts and advisories or sought to understand how to meet these needs using Short Message Service technology.MethodsData collection was completed using a two-part online survey. In the first part, health care providers identified their use of different technologies for receiving information and provided input on the message components most important in a public health message. In the second part, health care providers participated in an exercise in which they shortened three public health emergency messages, ranging from 2024–2828 characters per message, to meet the 160-character limitation for text delivery. Results were analyzed to determine associations between provider types, age ranges, gender, access to various media (text, email, fax, social media, etc.), and smart phone ownership.ResultsThe following components were most frequently selected as essential for a public health message: Topic, Recommendation, Geographic Location, Signs & Symptoms, Population Affected, and Link to Additional Information. There was no statistically significant association between message component selection and provider type, age ranges, or gender. In the message conversion exercise, we found a statistically significant association between providers who reported receiving information by SMS and/or smart phone ownership and including a link to additional information in the converted message, ranging from 61% to over 72% on a per message analysis.ConclusionsA substantive recommendation derived from this study is that public health agencies include a link to additional website information when sending messages in SMS format. SMS could be a useful public health tool for communicating with health care providers but further investigation of how to effectively use SMS and other mobile technologies is needed to inform public health decisions regarding adoption of messaging systems utilizing these newer technologies.
Highlights
Health care providers are an important target audience for public health emergency preparedness, response and recovery communications
Recruitment and enrollment At the conclusion of a public health messaging study [1], health care providers enrolled in the study (n = 617) were asked if they would consent to be contacted by email to participate in a future sub-study
In Part 2 we examined whether converted Short Message Service (SMS) public health messages differed for provider type, age, gender, exposure to and use of different technologies, or ownership of a SMS-capable device
Summary
Health care providers are an important target audience for public health emergency preparedness, response and recovery communications. Short Message Service or text messaging to cell phones may be a promising supplemental or alternative technique for reaching health care providers with time-sensitive public health information. Health care providers play significant roles in emergency preparedness, response and recovery; their effectiveness depends, in part, on receiving time-sensitive information from public health agencies [1]. Technologies such as Short Message Service (SMS) or text messaging to cell phones, twitter, and Facebook feeds may be promising supplemental or alternative techniques for reaching health care providers with timesensitive public health information. Little is known about what components of a message are considered essential for conveying time-sensitive public health information to health care providers nor how to modify a lengthy public health message for delivery over SMS. Other conditions related to the topic or event (e.g., air quality advisory impacting asthma patients) Location
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