Texting 4 Health (Part 2 of "R U Texting?")

Today's post is a follow-up to our initial post on text messaging (also known as "texting"). We're straying from our usual format, in order to share with you some highlights from last week's Texting4Health Conference at Stanford University .

Two members of the AIDS.gov team went to Texting4Health to learn from, and talk with, some of the country's leading experts in health, behavior change, and mobile technology, who are using texting in health. The conference brought together researchers, public health professionals, nonprofits, government, foundations, businesses, and more.

Bottom line: The AIDS.gov team learned A LOT! Below are four take-away messages we'll share with our colleagues. The key message we heard from the presentations, workshops, and one-on-one meetings was that HIV/AIDS programs can reap significant and cost-effective benefits from integrating text messaging into their work.

1. Cell phones and texting are everywhere, and they aren't going away: Richard Adler from the Institute for the Future set the stage by talking about the growth of cell-phone use and the demographics of the folks using them. He said that by the end of 2008, more than one-half of the people in the world will have a cell phone. (That's almost 3.5 billion people!)

2. Texting can change health behaviors: Debbi Gillotti, from Healthphone Solutions , talked about New Zealand's Stop Smoking with Mobile Phones program (STOMP) , a smoking cessation intervention via text messaging. Tina Hoff and Kimberly Dasher from the Kaiser Family Foundation shared how their HIV texting campaigns in the U.S. and the Caribbean use ZIP codes to link people to local HIV testing centers.

3. Your audience will tell you what they want and how they want it--just ask them! Deb Levine from ISIS talked about her experiences using texting to reach low-income, urban youth with HIV and STD information and resources. She said focus groups and "taking it to the streets" were key to shaping the content and delivery methods of the ISIS campaign. In addition, Deb and many others at the conference also emphasized the importance of testing, changing, and retesting your campaign, based on feedback from the audience you are trying to reach.

4. There are more and more texting solutions that can help you launch and manage a texting campaign. Ken Banks from Kiwanja.net (Frontline SMS, an open-source application), Eric Holmen from SmartReply , Paul Meyer from Voxiva , and Benjamin Stein from Mobile Commons , talked about and demonstrated their products. Several presenters mentioned the importance of integrating other tools (such as hotlines and websites) into your texting campaign, depending on your content and the behavioral outcome you want to encourage. They also emphasized starting small. Their advice? Keep it simple while you are getting your feet wet. You can always expand your campaign down the road!

There are lots of ways you can use texting in the fight against HIV. You can send appointment reminders, provide support for medication adherence, help people locate testing locations, and link them to support networks. We encourage you to explore (and share with us!) how you might integrate texting into your work in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

If you are already using texting in your HIV prevention, testing, treatment, or research programs, please let us know. We can all learn from each others' experiences.

In closing, we want to thank the conference's organizer, B.J. Fogg , for setting up such a fantastic lineup of speakers, a very well-organized program, and many great opportunities to network.

Stay tuned for next week's discussion of social networks!

Comments

[Nedra Weinreich]

Thanks for sharing! I was sad I was not able to attend myself, so I'm glad to read your summary at least.

[Miguel Gomez]

Thanks Nedra - nice to hear from you! We'll be sharing more information and resources that came out of the conference in weeks to come.

[Bill McIntosh]

I must say that I am very impressed with the way cutting edge technology and marketing tactics are being used to help fight HIV/AIDS and other health issues. This is a great way to get your message across to the broad public.

[Benjamin Stein]

That was an excellent summary to a very informative and well organized conference. Thanks for sharing what you learned. Best of luck to you and the aids.gov organization in creating new and innovative mobile programs this year!

[Miguel Gomez]

Thanks, Ben. We noticed that some of your colleagues are presenting at the NTEN conference. Our team members look forward to hearing their presentations. We expect a lot of great information coming from that conference.

[çeviri]

Thanks for sharing. This is a great way to get your message across to the broad public.

[Dennis]

I did not how much I really do not know about this. Just need the administration to continue on with spending on combatting.

[Ryan]

Any way that we can use technology to progress the fight against such devastating diseases. Thanks for sharing.

[sean]

Thanks for posting this information. Technology is critical to keep communication lines open.

[Alex Sicre]

Unfortunately I was unable to make it to the Texting 4 Health Conference, but I wanted to share with you my company's work. Intelecare Compliance Solutions is a healthcare technology company focused on enhancing medication adherence. We have developed our Personal Medical Reminder™ platform that sends user created reminders via email, text and voice messaging. We have 3.2 million people using our free service via our website www.intelecare.com.

Medication adherence is a critical component of any healthcare regime, especially with HIV/AIDS medications. Our platform provides lifestyle based reminders, so you get the messages when and how you want them. Not only do we have reminders for daily medications, but prescription refills, doctor's appointments and vital sign monitoring.

We service patients and caregivers on our site, and we also license our technology to industry to provide any web platform our reminder services. We offer hosted and enterprise solutions depending on the client's need. We are a healthcare solution, not just an email or text provider. We also offer a host of other services such as patient messaging, and physician pull through.

If anyone is interested in learning more, or signing up for our free reminders, please visit www.intelecare.com, or you can send me an email, alex.sicre@intelecare.com.

Medication adherence is America's biggest drug problem. but it needn't be. A simple reminder might be all that is needed. I hope we can be of help to those who need to stay adherent to their medical regimes.

[alhari]

Thanks for sharing. Very useful information.