Lots of people in health IT know the joke. Only two types of people still use pagers: doctors and drug dealers — and drug dealers upgraded years ago.

Sadly, the pager still manages to live in healthcare. Fortunately, some at HIMSS16 in Las Vegas are trying to kill it off, some more conspicuously than others.

Taking the in-your-face approach is DrFirst, a Rockville, Maryland-based vendor with roots in e-prescribing technology. The company has branched out to include secure messaging, a much better alternative than paging.

DrFirst enlisted Dr. Zubin “ZDoggMD” Damania (“slightly funnier than placebo”) to make a series of short “Star Wars” parodies, starring a disgruntled practitioner named Doc Vader. The first is called “The Pager Menace,” and it’s the theme for DrFirst’s presence at HIMSS this year.

Here’s the video:

The second episode,”The Clone Wards,” continues the theme.

Damania said that “Episode III: Revenge of the Fax” is coming next week. There’s no word on whether Disney asked for creative control, or if a beloved character gets killed off.

On the opposite end of the marketing spectrum is Doc Halo, a Cincinnati-based company that specializes in secure clinical communications. In a quiet, hype-free meeting, CEO Dr. Jose Barreau explained how pager replacements haven’t truly been enterprise-wide because critical care teams have held on to the ancient devices.

Pronto, a messaging and clinical scheduling product Doc Halo introduced a month ago, is intended to change that by enabling near-instantaneous activation of code, STEMI and stroke teams by smartphone. “Pronto has allowed us to get rid of the last few” pagers in hospitals, Barreau said.

He said that health systems can’t declare the pager dead until they eliminate it from all departments, including critical care. Without this step, according to Barreau, “you don’t knock out the dependence on the paging network.”

Photo: Flickr user JBrazito