Healthcare Technology Featured Article

March 06, 2009

Healthcare Technology and News: Report: Text-Messaging Reduces Skin Cancer Exposure


We’ve reported on these pages before of the increasingly central role that text-messaging plays in modern communications.
 
And whether people in the communications technology space are talking about how text-messaging and the mobile Web are emerging as core components of advertising or making driving and train conducting more dangerous, many analysts have called for global revenues to double, to $165 billion, by 2011.
 
This week, a Schaumburg, Illinois-based dermatology organization says the technology can be used for medical prevention – and specifically, to reduce the incidence of skin cancer.
 
At a conference yesterday, officials with the American Academy of Dermatology reportedly said that texting can be used to encourage sunscreen use.
 
According to a study from Dr. Joseph C. Kvedar, associate professor of dermatology at Harvard University Medical School in Boston, text messaging reminders are effective in improving sunscreen usage.

Kvedar told conference attendees that for most people, cell phones, e-mail and text messaging are an integral part of how they communicate with one another and an ideal channel for health care professionals to reach patients with important reminders on taking their daily medications or even applying sunscreen.
 
“Our study was designed to determine if, in fact, daily text-messaging reminders encouraging people to apply sunscreen resulted in increased sunscreen usage,” Kvedar said.
 
That text-messaging has emerged as a primary form of communication certainly isn’t news to anyone with a cell phone. Next month, despite the apparent medical absence of embroiled third baseman Alex Rodriguez, the New York Yankees are even planning to use the technology to boost communications, service and security at their new stadium in the Bronx.
 
HealthTechZone reported here on the use of text messaging as mainstream communications among mobile phone users – about 42 percent of consumers use their mobile phones to text as much or more than they do to make calls, one survey finds.
 
Kvedar’s study watched 70 patients ranging in age from 18 to 72 who were asked to apply sunscreen daily for six weeks. Half of the patients were randomly selected to receive text messages via cellular phones and the other half did not receive reminders. Text message reminders were sent to participants each morning around 7 a.m., which stated the weather report and a reminder to apply sunscreen.

Get this: Kvedar evaluated patients’ adherence to daily sunscreen usage with an electronic monitoring device, which was strapped onto the tube of sunscreen. When the cap of the sunscreen tube was removed, the device sent a text message to researchers that then was recorded as evidence of sunscreen use.

At the end of the study period, Kvedar found that the subjects receiving text messages had a significantly improved rate of sunscreen application as compared to the control subjects. Specifically, the 35 subjects who received daily text message reminders to apply sunscreen had a mean daily adherence rate of 56 percent compared to a mean daily adherence rate of only 30 percent by the 35 subjects who did not receive reminders.

“The implications of this study extend well beyond sunscreen use to any situation where a reminder to adhere to a care plan would be useful to patients – such as taking once-a-day medications or dressing changes for post-surgery patients,” he said.
 

Don’t forget to check out HealthTechZone’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.


Michael Dinan is a contributing editor for HealthTechZone, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Michael's articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Michael Dinan
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