Texting saves time treating sexually transmitted infections in London

If you’ve caught something, you want to know, right?  And you want to know as soon as possible so you can get it fixed. The BBC has reported the results of a study where a Sexual Health clinic used SMS to provide results to patients quicker than via post or phone messages.

Texting the results of chlamydia tests could lead to infected patients getting faster treatment, a study suggests. Patients would normally get results by post or during scheduled appointments. Those receiving mobile phone messages during a six-month pilot at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital received results at least three days faster than usual.

I hope that more and more hospitals and surgeries will implement SMS as a communications medium.  I’m sure more administrators will begin implementing the technology, particularly when this sort of result is reported:

The clinic had previously found that providing the results of sexual health screens to patients took up 120 hours a month.  The text messaging service saved 46 hours of staff time and £609 in costs.

Excellent!  Check out the BBC’s coverage in more depth: Here