Monday, January 19, 2004

Beepers With all of the sophisticated tools that can be used for communication I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with the hospital beeper. I will admit that over 20 years the thing has become smaller, vibrates rather than blares noise, and gives me a visual readout. However, I now carry a cell phone the same size as the beeper with far more capability. Cell phones have become so reasonable that most medical students and residents carry them. Beepers have little changed over 20 years but look what's been developed in the interval: we have the WWW, email, and instant messaging all of which allow me to communicate with colleagues half way around the world, all much easier than trying to locate someone in my own hospital. Think how arachaic the beeper really is. I beep someone to call me back at a telephone number. When the beeper system is busy, that message may take several minutes to transmit. In the meantime, I may have to move, call someone else, or another resident may be using the phone, thus the callback may not happen, at which point we start the process all over again. Why do we need beepers when we already have cell phones with instant messaging (most of you reading this realize that SMS text messaging for cell phones already exist). Howabout a combination PDA-cell phone. That combo would be much easier to write a note or even transmit an image. Just think how much easier it would be to deliver a message for NG tubes, central catheters etc without the hassle of the beeper. Well I'd like to continue this discussion but my beeper just went off. 10:27:15 AMGoogle It!