ISMP survey looks at support for text messaging of medical orders

Many health care providers do not support using text messaging for medical orders, according to a survey released last week by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices. The 778 respondents included nurses, pharmacists, prescribers, medication safety officers and others. One-third of respondents thought medical orders should not be texted under any circumstances, while 40% thought the practice was acceptable when using an encrypted device application. The most commonly cited concerns included the potential for unintended autocorrection of text, confusing abbreviations, misidentifications or misspellings.