Text Messaging In Health Care

Improving Outcomes. Changing Behavior. Saving Money.

A Research Summary by Dr. Vishal Mehta

There is now convincing data that text messaging can influence health behavior and decisions.

Text (SMS) messaging has become a preferred mechanism of communication in modern society. It has continued to gain popularity over the course of the past decade and shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, of the 4.1 billion cellular phone subscribers worldwide, an estimated 3.05 billion use text messaging. Text messaging is now the most used communication tool on the planet exceeding email and instant messaging. As of 2011, some 83% of American adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them (73%) send and receive text messages. The usage numbers in a younger segment of society are even more impressive. Fully 95% of 18-29 year olds use text messaging and these users send or receive an average of 87.7 text messages on a normal day.1

There is now convincing data that text messaging can influence health behavior and decisions. These facts, combined with the time saving potential for health care providers, make text messaging a promising new technology for the health care field that is likely to see increasing adoption in the coming years. The current use of text messaging within health care can be broken down into 5 segments: 1) appointment and medication reminders, 2) preventative health, 3) population awareness, 4) education around diseases, conditions and procedures, and 5) pain management. Click here to download our whitepaper on the clinical outcomes from text message programs.

Or view it online by using the reader below.