EDI (electronic data interchange) messages are notoriously lean and difficult (or impossible) to interpret without additional information. While recognizing and sympathizing with the many criticisms that have been made of the design of EDI protocols, we argue in this paper that there is something basically correct, even inevitable, in the noted leanness of EDI messages. By way of making this ca...

The technology of change is rapid, it is all encompassing, and it is inescapable. The question emerges in this swift acquisition of new technology – what is lost and what is gained? Traits such as social introversion and defensiveness can inhibit traditional styles of communication. It is believed that electronic communication tools can facilitate communication with certain personality traits a...

background & aim :lack of adherence to prescribed medication is a main concern in medicine especially in chronic diseases. the aim of present study was to determine the effect of supportive text message on the adherence to treatment of depression. methods & materials : this quasi-experimental study was conducted on sixty eligible patients with diagnosis of depression who referred to a psychiatr...

This paper investigates the feasibility of employing a freely available chat client for the teaching of mathematics to distance students. The innovation in our approach is the incorporation of a handwriting tool delivered with the client. The handwriting facility within the chat client allows students and instructors to directly post and edit mathematical formulae and diagrams. We report on out...

nBACKGROUND: Electronic health records (EHRs) may reduce medical errors and improve care, but can complicate clinical encounters. OBJECTIVE To describe hospital-based physicians' perceptions of the impact of EHRs on patient-physician interactions and contrast these findings against office-based physicians' perceptionsMethods: We performed a qualitative analysis of comments submitted in respon...

Applications from prior technologies are often reimplemented on new computing or communications platforms, and users sometimes don’t realize that the applications have been recycled. For example, text messaging was available between computer users for years before its implementation on cell phones, and email has precursors before its implementation on the Internet. My colleague Noel Morris and ...

This paper raises some of the issues related to large corporate e-mail systems. A brief discussion of whether or not current functionality suffices is given first. The result of this discussion is then related to the development of corporate e-mail systems. We show that a number of problems typically experienced stem from a lack of early strategic thinking. Subsequently, end-user problems of me...

INTRODUCTION The motivation for this special issue comes from the continued worldwide growth in the use of electronic mail, instant messaging, and related electronic communication/ coordination technologies. Watch television or read a magazine, and you will see news and advertising related to these technologies and offers to provide a wide range of services. Individuals and companies have recog...

BACKGROUND The efficacy of antiretroviral therapy depends on patient adherence to a daily medication regimen, yet many patients fail to adhere at high enough rates to maintain health and reduce the risk of transmitting HIV. Given the explosive global growth of cellular-mobile phone use, text-messaging interventions to promote adherence are especially appropriate. This meta-analysis synthesized ...

To diagnose hypertension, multiple blood pressure (BP) measurements are recommended. We randomized patients into three groups: EMR-only (patients recorded BP measurements in an electronic medical record [EMR] web portal), EMR + reminders (patients were sent text message reminders to record their BP measurements in the EMR), and bi-directional text messaging (patients were sent a text message as...