Texting For Better Health?

by April Fulton

Having a computer is not enough to get patients to make healthier choices southerntabitha/Flickr

Would you like to receive e-mails from your health insurer, reminding you to exercise more and eat right? How about a text message promoting free blood pressure checks at the local hospital?

Apparently, most of us want such communications, but insurers and doctors are not yet taking advantage of these proactive technologies.

A new survey by Microsoft released today says most consumers want their doctors and health insurers to use technology reminders to help them live a healthy lifestyle, but nearly half say their health plans support them only when they are already sick.

Health insurers, who released the survey at the America's Health Insurance Plans' annual meeting, see the results as an indication that they need to increase their use of new proactive technology to reach clients about staying healthy.

"This research is a wake-up call to the health insurance industry to start untethering much of the online tools and services they've tied to stand-alone member self-service portals and weave them into the consumer's daily digital world," says Chad Pomeroy, vice president for Innovation and eBusiness at WellPoint Inc.

Translation for non-techies? Stop relying on websites requiring users to log on and for goodness sake don't expect anyone to read those newsletters sent via snail mail for the latest information.

According to the survey, 66 percent of Americans are interested in receiving health-related encouragement or reminder e-mails from their health insurance company and 52 percent are open to receiving e-mails that offer feedback on their health progress.

Fifty-seven percent said a telephone reminder was OK, and 10 percent were open to text messages.

Of course, Microsoft has a few handy tools to help make it easier for insurers to incorporate such technology.

Microsoft subsidiary, TellMe Networks, Inc., offers interactive telephone and text message reminders to manage prescriptions or track calories, and Microsoft HealthVault, a personal health platform, can assist people making health decisions using information from a variety of data sources, including providers, pharmacies, insurers, and devices such as blood pressure monitors and pedometers.