MIAMI, Jan. 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- ER Texting, a provider of turnkey text message services to the healthcare industry, announced that their client, Miami Children's Hospital (MCH), recently won the Florida Hospital Association's Mark of Excellence Award for Web-based Marketing.  MCH received the award for its incorporation of texting as a way of communicating urgent care center wait times to prospective patients. 

For the last two years, South Florida residents have been accessing wait times for all the MCH urgent care centers via the MCH Fit4Kids IPhone App and text messages. By simply texting MCH to 4ER411 (437411), the wait times for the centers are delivered instantly.  In addition to the wait times, the hospital also provides contact information for its urgent care centers that accept walk-in patients; thus, providing additional options for lower acuity patients.

MCH, which originally implemented the ER Texting service in May 2011, has seen over 2,000 subscribers use the service to obtain current wait times at its four urgent care centers.  The service is currently being expanded to additional urgent care centers that will soon be opened to the public.

"This recognition speaks of the importance of providing patients information in the most conveniently accessible manner to them," said Marcia Diaz de Villegas, Administrative Director of Marketing and Public Relations at MCH.  "In today's mobile society, customers are accustomed to making instantaneous decisions, which can include visits to an emergency room or urgent care center."

Providing emergency room and urgent care center wait times improves patient satisfaction scores; delivers greater hospital transparency; provides for better patient volume balancing and increased efficiency and ultimately increases patient visits.  Posting wait times aligns with consumers' expectations and is a determining factor when selecting a hospital for emergency care. 

About Miami Children's Hospital
Founded in 1950 by Variety Clubs International, Miami Children's Hospital® is South Florida's only licensed specialty hospital exclusively for children, with more than 650 attending physicians and over 130 pediatric subspecialists. The 289-bed hospital is renowned for excellence in all aspects of pediatric medicine with specialty programs ranked among the best in the nation in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 by U.S.News & World Report. The hospital is also home to the largest pediatric teaching program in the southeastern United States and has been designated an American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet facility, the nursing profession's most prestigious institutional honor.

About ER Texting
ER Texting provides texting services to hospitals and urgent care facilities that want to post their emergency room wait time and allow consumers to access those times via text message. By virtue of its dedicated and highly recognizable SMS short code 4ER411, ER Texting offers a complete, secure, compliant and integrated texting and marketing platform.  ER Texting's clients include, among others:  Miami Children's Hospital, Adventist Health System, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Metrowest Medical Center, Lawrence General Hospital, Park Ridge Health, The Hospital of Central Connecticut and Shawnee Mission Medical Center.

For more information on ER Texting and our capabilities, please visit www.ERtexting.com.

SOURCE ER Texting