😬 Emojis in Clinical Documentation 😭

No, thank you – but, does Gen Z/Gen Alpha care what I think?

Across 218.1 million notes from 1.6 million patients at the University of Michigan, these authors found 4,126 containing 372 distinct emojis.

Here are the most popular:

The authors delve retrospectively into the “but y tho” of these emojis, and found most were added by clinicians, about two-thirds of which were created for patient-facing notes. The emojis appeared to serve a variety of purposes, from added color to emphasis on a particular message. There is also an entertaining call for emoji governance and institutional guidelines, which seems mostly unnecessary at this time.

What a time to be alive! Go slay.