Texting smoking quitters
GP surgeries in Islington have found that using text messaging for
their patient stop-smoking schemes has been six times more effective
than traditional means of communicating with patients.
Islington practices using the iPLATO text-messaging system have
reported patient response rates of 30%, versus 5% using letters to
communicate.
By identifying patients on their GP system, surgeries can send out
text messages asking patients to text back their current smoking status.
Those who indicate that they are still smokers and trying to quit are
then invited to smoking cessation clinics.
“We sent a text message to 200 patients telling them that we were
updating their medical record and asked ‘pls. text back current non
smoker; smoker & are you ready to quit?’. Any patients indicating that
they were still smoking were invited for smoking cessation support”,
explained Charlotte Blyth, Practice Manager at the Elizabeth Avenue
surgery. “Using letters and even calling up patients to invite them to
the surgery is a huge drain on surgery resources and staff time. With
the iPLATO system we can contact hundreds of patients instantly without
having to stuff a single envelope. Many of our own surgery staff were
amazed at the rapid response, as the majority of patients responded
within minutes. If we had run the same campaign using letters we would
generally have to wait a few days to get any response.”
Thirty-three per cent of Islington’s adult population smokes,
compared with 26.5% in north central London and 27.5% in England as a
whole. Approximately 39 people in 10,000 die of smoking-related causes
in Islington, a rate higher than other boroughs in north central London
and London as a whole. Any means of reducing these numbers must be tried
and iPLATO patient messaging clearly fits this purpose.
“Text messaging has a huge role to play in the way surgeries
communicate with their patients”, said David Thomas, Head of Information
at Islington Primary Care Trust. “The immediacy and convenience of this
medium has been illustrated by the positive results experienced by many
of our surgeries. Islington PCT is dedicated to using innovative
technologies to enhance patient services while giving patients greater
choice in the way in which they receive health information. We see text
messaging as one of the technologies.”
Source: bjhc&im April 2007
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