QR Codes in Health Promotion

Introduction

What is a QR code?

‘QR’ stands for Quick Response code, a 2 dimensional code reminding you of bar codes you see plastered  on products, only square in shape and not rectangular.

How does it work?

QR codes can be printed on anything, with a regular printer and is able to store information like phone number, email address, event details, URL, geo location, simple text, SMS… just to cite a few examples. You will need a QR scanner on your smartphone to scan a QR code when you see one. Its free.

Example 1: At the recent Medicine 2.0 Congress in Stanford University, attendees were given name badges and on the badges were QR codes that provided more information about the attendee and this made networking and exchanging contact details easy,  without the need for a pen and paper.

Example 2: At the Health 2.0 Developer Challenge a team decided to improve ‘real-time care experience feedback’ by using QR codes. This allowed for clients from both inpatient and outpatient units to give real-time  valuable and structured feedback that will allow the provider to react for service recovery or caregiver recognition.

QR codes in Health Promotion

People don’t stop in front of a poster, to take down a phone number or URL, and if they pick up a pamphlet, it is most likely they’re looking at it in your clinic or program.

By the looks of it, posters, pamphlets and other printed media will continue to prevail in the Australian health promotion and social marketing scene. These items get pulled down and thrown away with no plans for recycling and that is a shame for a public health effort. My grand idea is to encourage organisations and health professionals to use  QR codes on printed media, and get people to scan the code to then be taken to a mobile web site. The posters don’t need to be replenished often but the mobile web page can be dynamic and reflect real-time changes.

The principle view of what a poster can do must also change. I suggest using printed media and QR codes to get people onto mobile web sites of health programs and services instead of trying to motivate and change attitudes. That is a job for the highly skilled motivator and not a poster.

When we focus on creating small behavior changes through incorporating QR codes and printed media, we can improve social marketing strategies in real-time. Mobile web analytics can give us geo location and user interactions as they are happening. Can a poster do that?

The linkage between the offline world and the online world is all about behavior design and connecting the public with health services. This merits a doctoral research to peel away the layers to find reliable information about its use.