Is there a case for more medical emoji? Study looks at how clinicians use them on the job

Thinking about its mission to make healthcare workers’ jobs easier during the pandemic, PerfectServe, a healthcare communications services company, was brainstorming ways to leverage its communicat | Communications software company PerfectServe wondered whether it could identify evidence of burnout or frustration among clinicians expressed through emoji. But the company discovered just the opposite – emoji were overwhelmingly used to convey politeness and positive intent. Some researchers and physicians have made a case for a comprehensive set of medical emoji.

In fact, clinical teams used emoji that were “far more positive in tone” than how the general public use them, according to the company's available data. While practitioners were more likely to send emoji than other care team members, internal medicine clinicians were more likely than other specialties to use these symbols, accounting for a quarter of total clinical emoji use in the data. One reason emoji are not popular among other care team members like nurses, the report suggested, is because most nursing staff are not equipped with smartphones to communicate in the clinical setting.