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Emoji Use in the Electronic Health Record is Increasing

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Re: Emoji Use in the Electronic Health Record is Increasing

#31

Post by randycupertino »

anonlinc77 wrote: post #2

Emoji use was stable from 2020-2024, then spiked in 2025. The authors don't attempt to explain it, but I bet AI is to blame. Anyone who has had to clean up AI comments riddled with stupid emojis from their code will understand this.

I have some coworkers who use AI in place of the bullets in bulleted lists and I don't hate it. It's fun and eye-catching and brings some novelty to our scientific work. One uses science themed emojis (he's a cardiologist so lots of cardiac hearts, test tubes and DNA emojis) and another uses custom-mojis that she designed after Piet Mondrian's art.

I've also seen emojis popping up in official meeting minutes which is fine too. Why not spice it up with some whimsy.

Re: Emoji Use in the Electronic Health Record is Increasing

#33

Post by stvltvs »

jskrn wrote: post #25
Simulacra wrote: post #8

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I don't think emojis should be used at all in health records… It reminds me of stories my mum would tell me about when she would get a résumé pre-digital, and there would be a mark/symbol on it, and it might meant the person is fat, black, wears glasses, etc...

Agree with your first part. On the second part, what??

Plausible deniability on excluding people for BS reasons I'd guess.

Re: Emoji Use in the Electronic Health Record is Increasing

#34

Post by zahlman »

jasonsb wrote: post #4
anonlinc77 wrote: post #2

Emoji use was stable from 2020-2024, then spiked in 2025. The authors don't attempt to explain it, but I bet AI is to blame. Anyone who has had to clean up AI comments riddled with stupid emojis from their code will understand this.

> Anyone who has had to clean up AI comments riddled with stupid emojis from their code will understand this. I have no idea what you're talking about. I code daily, with 80/90% of my work AI-assisted, and never had to clean one emoji. As for emojis appearing in EHRs, a more likely explanation is the growing presence of Gen Z professionals in healthcare, who are known for integrating emojis into their communication.…

> I have no idea what you're talking about. I code daily, with 80/90% of my work AI-assisted, and never had to clean one emoji.

Compare the READMEs of GitHub repositories for low-rated Show HN submissions in 2025 vs 2024. It's really clear.

Re: Emoji Use in the Electronic Health Record is Increasing

#36

Post by brrwind »

jawns wrote: post #19

I wonder if some portion of these come from templates. Maybe there's a patient communication template that includes a telephone emoji, and it gets reused. Health care workers are in a hurry when writing notes, so I doubt they're consulting their emoji pickers just to make their notes more interesting.

The study says exactly that. 41% are templated

Re: Emoji Use in the Electronic Health Record is Increasing

#38

Post by ziml77 »

jasonsb wrote: post #26
0x1ch wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Gen Z, also an engineer. I wouldn't bother removing them from the comments, but I wouldn't add them myself lol.

[flagged]

Because using lol as punctuation indicates gen Y, not gen Z?

Re: Emoji Use in the Electronic Health Record is Increasing

#40

Post by [deleted] »

VanTheBrand wrote: post #21
jasonsb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is. Let's say that AI adds emojis to my code/text. Me, a millennial who hates emojis, will tell the AI to delete those emojis and never use them again in my code or my official documents. The gen Z guy who got his first job last week will love to keep them.

Most people using LLMs wouldn’t even know you could tell it not to produce emoji. You are thinking about this like a coder not like a doctor.

[deleted]
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