It's easy to underestimate the power of a single text.
But, if you rely on medication, a simple reminder text
could make a huge difference for your health. Studies
are showing that setting up text message reminders for
dosages improves rates of compliance to a medication
routine, findings that have big implications.
It can be all too easy to miss doses of medication
by simply forgetting to take them, and many who are
prescribed medication choose not to take it, feeling
uncertain about its risks or that they may not need
it. In short, medication compliance can be dangerously
low; almost one third of patients prescribed medication
prescribed to control blood pressure and lipids, medicine
that can be critical to a patient's health, are not
compliant with their medication.
Increasing medication compliance is a big concern for
healthcare providers, but a difficult change for them
to make: once the patient has left the office, the ball
is no longer in the provider's court. And who's going
to take the time and effort to remind and encourage
patients to take their medication every day? Enter texting.
Texting is a powerful vehicle for increasing medication
compliance now more than ever. Most U.S. residents own
a cell phone, and cell phones are increasing in popularity
across generations, including among older folks. The
reach of texting as a medium is broad enough to make
texting a viable, widespread solution to the problem
at hand.
In a study of 300 patients already taking medication
to treat high blood pressure and cholesterol, published
in the journal PLOS One, half of patients were assigned
to a control group while half received text message
reminders. At first, reminder texts were sent daily,
asking if the patients had taken their medication. After
two weeks, the texts dropped in frequency to every other
day, and after another two weeks, dropped to once weekly
for six months. If a patient did not reply, they received
a phone call to further investigate the situation.
The study bears promising findings: only 9% of the
experimental condition failed to take their medication
or took less than 80% of their prescription, compared
to 25% noncompliance in the control condition. These
results suggest that texting offers great power to improve
and ensure the health of patients; this sort of program
could be used to text drug reminders to patients of
a variety of chronic illnesses.
Another feature of this program is that it identifies
those who likely do not take their medication, simply
based on who does not respond to the texts. This data
can be valuable to healthcare providers, allowing them
to determine whom they might wish to monitor or follow
up with on alternate plans to improve compliance with
medication.
Also of note is the financial implications for healthcare
providers. Texting is a very low-cost approach to the
problem at hand, and involves minimal labor hours when
SMS subscription software is used. For its simplicity,
ease, efficacy, and potential benefits and savings,
texting to increase medication compliance presents a
promising prospect.
About the Author -
Sharon Housley is the VP of Marketing for NotePage,
Inc. a software company for communication software solutions.
http://www.notepage.net
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