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Text4baby: An Innovative Example of Utilizing Interactive Mobile Health to Provide Evidence-Based Information
Title: Text4baby: An Innovative Example of Utilizing Interactive Mobile Health to Provide Evidence-Based Information
- Discuss the latest evidence supporting the use of mobile health in providing evidence-based health information and connecting women to care and key health messages such as immunization information.
- Explore innovative strategies to integrate text messaging into current prenatal and mother baby practice protocols to enhance education for pregnant women and new mothers.
- Describe creative health communications enhancements (including interactivity, mobile pages, quizzes, and videos) ,user feedback, and program outcomes from the nation’s largest mobile service
Proposed change: Perinatal nurses can now utilize this free mobile health service as an evidence-based tool to connect pregnant women and new mothers to key health information.This contemporary approach may supplement and/or replace numerous educational pamphlets.
Implementation, outcomes and evaluation: Messages include information on elective induction, baby’s development and breastfeeding. New interactive features including mobile pages, videos, appointment reminders, quizzes, and modules on specific health issues/resources have been integrated into the service.
Results from two text4baby interactive modules show text4baby is reminding participants to get the influenza vaccination and is connecting uninsured participants to health care. In October 2012, text4baby launched an influenza module designed to assess and measure the effectiveness of tailored education and the use of an additional reminder to overcome barriers to obtaining vaccination. Findings show among women who were initially planning to get the flu shot, receiving an additional reminder increased the likelihood of getting the flu shot (for mothers) (AOR = 1.96, p = <.001) and the likelihood of still planning to get the flu shot later in the season (for pregnant women) (AOR = 2.07, p <.001). Among mothers who reported not planning to get vaccinated because of cost, those who received tailored education were twice as likely to report they received the vaccine at follow-up (AOR 1.94, p=.03).
Additionally, through a similar module designed to connect participants with health insurance coverage, over half of respondents reported they were Medicaid/CHIP recipients, while 13% were uninsured. When text4baby provided those uninsured respondents with a resource for obtaining coverage and checked in one week later, 51% of those respondents indicated they applied for Medicaid/CHIP during that one week period. External evaluations confirm text4baby is facilitating interaction with health providers, reminding participants of appointments and immunizations, connecting them with health services, and that participants are three times more likely to report they are better prepared for motherhood compared to non-participants.
Implications for nursing practice: Text4baby supports pregnant women and mothers through the convenience and interactivity of texting. Perinatal nurses can use this innovative strategy to advance their practice and for delivering evidence based health messages. Text4baby continues to strive to advance the science of mobile health through content enhancements, monitoring participant feedback, and program evaluation.
Keywords: mobile health, evidence-based messages, evaluation