Emoji are an increasingly common communication tool—it’s estimated that 92% of the online population use emojis daily and over 10 billion emojis are sent each day.

But do they have a place in healthcare?

As of September 2020, the nonprofit Unicode consortium has approved 3,521 emoji—preloaded, curated images that work across all digital platforms—but only roughly 30 of them could be considered relevant to medicine.

Patients and healthcare providers would benefit from the development and use of a more comprehensive and curated set of medical emoji, say the authors of a new position paper in JAMA.

These emoji could be used to:

• Boost comprehension of written discharge instructions

• Collect more comprehensive data on symptoms, disease progression and treatment outcomes

• Reduce disparities in care due to language barriers and differences in health literacy levels

• Speed the collection of patient information in emergency situations

The authors of the paper, Emoji for the Medical Community—Challenges and Opportunities, include Shuhan He, MD, an attending physician in Department of Emergency Medicine, Lab of Computer Science, and director of digital growth for the Center for Innovation in Digital HealthCare at Massachusetts General Hospital, Debbie Lai from the University College of London, and Jennifer 8 Lee from the Emojination and Unicode Consortium.

Dr. He and Lai previously worked together to win Unicode approval of the anatomically correct heart and lung emoji in 2019. Along with Lee, they are now working with medical societies to add 15 more medical emoji including the stomach, liver, spine and kidneys (see images at the end of this post).

In addition to introducing the proposed emoji, their JAMA paper also serves as a call for the medical community to embrace emoji as part of the future of healthcare communication and identify the best way to integrate them into patient care.

The rapid adaption of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the crucial role that digital communication plays in the present—and future—of medicine, the authors write.

As a preloaded, curated set of digital images that work across platforms—from computers to phones to tablets—emoji possess the power of standardization, universality and familiarity.

Visual assessment scales such as the Wong–Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale are already used in clinical settings, but these scales are often trademarked and come with licensing fees. They may also not translate across digital platforms.

“Emojis are open source and non-proprietary, presenting an alternative that is free, increasingly familiar to patients and digitally accessible.”

Emojis won’t solve everything, the authors acknowledge. More widespread use of emoji may increase the barriers to care for patients without access to technology, and the ability to communicate key health concepts by emoji may be limited by a patient’s understanding of human anatomy.

But with medical emoji still in their infancy, there is an opportunity to proactively shape the way this method of communication is incorporated into practice and research, they write.

“Emoji can be thought of as a visual language, similar the Chinese language, and can convey lots of meaning. We are working to understand how this new evolving language can be used as a means to communicate”

“We should work towards a consensus on what iconography would best serve patients and the profession to improve the accessibility and quality of healthcare and health information in the digital age.”

Existing Medical Emoji

Proposed Additions

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