Texting Our Way To Better Health: A Summary of The U.S. Department of Health’s Report

Well, the name kind of says it all. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a report entitled “Using Health Text Messages to Improve Consumer Health Knowledge, Behaviors, and Outcomes.”

I’ll make it easy on you and jump straight to their conclusion. “The trend toward widespread ownership of cell phones and widespread text message use across virtually all segments of the U.S. population will continue to support the spread of health text messaging programs. This scan provides encouraging evidence related to the use of health text messaging to improve health promotion, disease prevention and disease management (HHS)”.

The full report is available at hrsa.gov, but to save you some time here are some of the more interesting tidbits:

• Eight of nine studies found evidence to support text messaging as a tool for behavioral change.
• Personal wellness, preventive care, and disease management are the three areas where text messaging can have the greatest impact.
• Health-related text messaging programs can bring about behavior change to improve short term smoking cessation, short term diabetes management and clinical outcomes
• Research shows text messaging improves treatment compliance, including medication adherence and appointment attendance
• Cell phones are the most popular mobile device used due to their relatively low cost and widespread use
• Health related capabilities of text messaging include reminders, prompts to schedule or confirm an appointment, notification of a lab result, requests for data, positive behavioral encouragement and information to improve self-efficacy.

It’s a lot of information we’ve all known and been ahead of the curve on —  but it’s great to have HHS singing from the same hymnal and backing up our efforts. I would encourage you to take a spin through it. You might find something surprising – and it’s a good feeling knowing we’re on the right track with GoMo Health!

Great news as we head into (not back to) the future!

To read the full study, visit HRSA.gov.

About Bob Gold

Bob Gold is a rare combination of business entrepreneur, strategic visionary and outstanding communicator. As a leading “behavioral technologist”, Gold has over 20 years of applied research and development experience in the growing field of digital-to-human persuasion and motivation. He applies his methodologies and techniques to help create a more sustainable health care infrastructure for payers, providers, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers. As CEO of GoMo Health, a leading technology provider in the emerging market of mobile care coordination and population health management systems, Gold focuses his energy on creating member and patient engagement algorithms to produce better outcomes and evidence-based data sets. His work places an emphasis on the delivery of care plans and remote care coordination with a more personalized, disciplined and nurturing experience within a person’s lifestyle and typical day.

About GoMo Health

GoMo Health™ is a leader in personalized patient engagement, specializing in designing, implementing, and marketing full service remote care solutions for health plans and providers looking to motivate healthy decision making. Our Concierge Care® solution uses human responsive technology to engage those with high-risk, chronic, and complex wellness issues, motivating better self-care.

GoMo Health is a division of Gold Group Enterprises, a full service organization focused on engaging consumers across multiple platforms and mediums with strategic and innovative solutions that lie at the intersection of humanity and technology.