IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijnvor/v24y2021i2p200-210.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The increased use of WhatsApp® application within a colorectal surgery team

Author

Listed:
  • Pith Soh Beh
  • Suat Chin Ng
  • Amanda Nikolic
  • Matija Radojcic
  • Grace Chew
  • Nilmini Wickramasinghe
  • Philip Smart

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the volume and pattern of usage, media types and message contents of a smartphone group communication app within an acute surgical unit. WhatsApp® chatgroup history of a colorectal unit from August 2017 till January 2018 was analysed. The messages were categorised into text and multimedia messages, and further classified into groups based on contents, time of transmission and position of sender. 69% (11 of 16) of the participants were aged between 20-29 years old. 5,004 (4,498 clinical, 506 non-clinical) messages were transmitted over six months. 242 (5%) were multimedia messages or photographs. Of the clinical messages, 3,721 (83%) messages were relevant to patient care. There was significant after-hours communication (1,156, 23%). WhatsApp® usage peaked in December (1,555 messages). WhatsApp® meets the communication demands of clinical practice in a surgical unit. Its ability to support multimedia formats has significant advantage over traditional communication tools. Despite data security concerns, its usage had increased over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Pith Soh Beh & Suat Chin Ng & Amanda Nikolic & Matija Radojcic & Grace Chew & Nilmini Wickramasinghe & Philip Smart, 2021. "The increased use of WhatsApp® application within a colorectal surgery team," International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 24(2), pages 200-210.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijnvor:v:24:y:2021:i:2:p:200-210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=114734
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijnvor:v:24:y:2021:i:2:p:200-210. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=22 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.