Mobile technology allows organizations to reach consumers using a device that is almost always with the owner. While many people might see this as one of the downsides of having a smartphone with them at all times, it can be used to deliver valuable services for a large segment of the population as well. This is especially true for health-related applications providing behavioral change programs. A company offering these solutions, Voxiva, provider of interactive mobile health services, announced it has enrolled 1 million users in its digital health program by leveraging mobile technology.
The company provides a number of services including Text4baby and Text4kids to promote maternal and child health, Txt4health for adult health and wellness, Text2quit for smoking cessation, and Care4life for diabetes self-management. These evidence-based behavior programs are designed to provide support so users can manage their condition.
The programs encourages users to engage and interact by sending and receiving text messages, logging into personal health records, submitting data using an app and watching educational videos. The company says their users interact with a program an average of 130 times, which is important for conditions such as diabetes, especially during the early stages of diagnosis.
The Care4life program was developed in collaboration with the American Diabetes Association using its clinical guidelines, content derived from the National Diabetes Education Program, and principles of the American Association of Diabetes Educators AADE7 Self-Care Behaviors to help teach participants about diabetes and manage their ailment. It is available in English and Spanish using text messaging and Web based tool to interact with users. The program has helped 85 percent of the participants improve their knowledge of diabetes, manage their conditions and make sure they remember to take medications and attend doctors’ appointments, which is extremely important for insulin dependent diabetics.
The Voxiva platform has been studied and proven to provide a valuable support system that helps individuals achieve their goals. According to the company's CEO, Justin Sims, "A randomized trial by George Washington University (GW) of our smoking cessation program, they found that biochemically confirmed abstinence was more than twice that of the control group. In another GW study, they found that Text4baby mothers were nearly three times more likely to believe that they were prepared to be new mothers compared to those in the no exposure control group."
Even though people complain about the intrusive features of smartphones, these very same features are proving to be invaluable for many users who rely on it for their wellbeing. As more companies start using mobile to deliver different degrees of health related solutions, consumers will have more options to better manage their health.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
