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SMS Messages Save Cost for Hospital/Clinic
Sending SMS reminders
to patients for doctor appointments has not only been proven
popular and effective, but has turned out to be a cost-saving
measure for hospitals and clinics. Hospitals are looking to
broaden the use of SMS patient reminder system, because patients
not turning up for appointments is a big problem for hospitals.
For example, patients who skip appointments or fail to cancel
them have been costing Norfolk's health service in UK an
estimated ￡1.5 million a year, with close to 30,000 patients not
showing up. Since the SMS reminder service has been in place,
the number of DNAs (Did Not Attend) has been cut by more than
half and has saved an estimated ￡18,000.
"SMS is extremely reliable because it's instant. Posting
notices is more costly and there is a chance the patient has
moved addresses and will never get the notice." – said Sarah
Prestwood, the spokesperson of Ealing Hospital, UK.
"The feedback received has been extremely positive from both
NHS staff and patients alike." – Dennis Armstrong, of
Hampshire-based Company Computer Communications, says the
possibilities for uses of SMS are endless.
M2U can be easily deployed to help hospitals and clinics send
SMS/MMS reminders to their patients at the right time, thus
increase the financial performance and operation efficiency.
SMS/MMS to Protect Hospital Staff
There are hospitals that use SMS messaging system to protect
staff members. If they are on house calls and do not respond to
an automatically generated SMS/MMS message within a certain
amount of time, an alarm is raised. There is unlimited
potential, especially for rescue services.
SMS/MMS for Blood Donation
Want to donate blood? Just SMS. "Be a blood donor, Save a life"
campaign launched in India aims to get donors to sign up by SMS
their blood type to a designated short code. Subsequently they
will be included in the list of donors and their numbers will be
provided to patients. With this initiative, getting donors and
signing up to become donors is merely a matter of a brief SMS.
Those who need donors will follow the same format and send the
information to another designated code, after which they will
get the numbers of two donors. Once enrolled, donors could
choose how frequently they would like to donate blood. There was
also the option for them to drop out. Other services like
sending thank-you messages from patients to donors are also
available. The facility is open to blood banks as well.
M2U's SMS/MMS broadcasting and intelligent incoming SMS
processing capability can help deploy such campaigns from a PC.
SMS/MMS Brings Health Messages to Youth
A Confidential healthcare scheme in UK has shown great success
that brought health messages to the youth. By contacting the
Health SMS service anonymously, 11 to 16-year-olds can get
advice on sexual health, drugs, alcohol and even relationships.
Other
campaigns/health advice SMS services offered elsewhere:
- Singapore
(where mobile penetration is greater than 75% - it's 51% in
US) encouraged young citizens to talk about sex in a Sex in
the Air campaign, initiated by Action for AIDS. The service
encouraged subscribers to send sex-related questions by SMS to
an international panel of doctors and health educators, with
answers returned within 48 hours.
- An SMS campaign
launched by the European Union, to warn teenagers about the
dangers related to smoking and tobacco. Launched April 1st
2003, in most European countries.
- An SMS campaign
against cannabis: The British Lung Foundation sent out 30,000
SMS messages to young adults to raise awareness that smoking
cannabis can be harmful to their health.
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