Monitoring and supporting diets and psychological treatments with SMS

Bulk SMS has recently been incorporated into various communication and medic-patient relations techniques.

These ‘telemedicine’ techniques are very effective in ensuring patient adherence to treatment.

One of the projects in which LabsMobile has had the pleasure of participating is treatment support. A set of doctors and psychologists have come up with a method by which they can communicate regularly with patients so that they find it easier to follow their recommended diet and lose weight.

Monitoring and supporting diets and psychological treatments with SMS

SMS notifications supporting the patient are sent out every week to:

• Remind patients of the visits they have programmed to ensure they attend.
• Motivate patients to adhere to treatment and medical advice.
• Collect satisfaction responses and/or patient emotions or feelings, creating bi-directional communication.

To motivate the patient and to ensure they feel capable of combating their disease, SMS messages also ask about mood and an evaluation of the system in order to complete the monitoring process.

The relationship between the medic and psychologist with the patient is essential to the practice of medicine and ensuring medical care is to the highest standard.

It’s important to work on this relationship throughout the course of the illness. Evaluating all the phases of treatment doesn’t only help it to be a lot more effective, but allows more objectives to be achieved in less time. Sending SMS notifications about diets can help to complete this, on behalf of both the patient and the doctors’ evaluation.

In this case, medical nutritionists and psychologists have devised a set of SMS messages to motivate the patient and reinforce  treatment. The first step is to classify the patient’s profile, then send the corresponding SMS messages over the number of weeks that their treatment lasts.

Automated intervention with SMS reaches a large number of patients and improves the results of established treatments.

In medicine, the implication of new technologies can be very beneficial. SMS aren’t only used to monitor and motivate patients on diets, but also to create reminders about appointments and to take prescribed medications at the necessary times.

SMS can have a very positive effect on medicine and  multiple applications. Science and technology are advancing with gigantic steps, and bulk SMS can be adapted to make life a lot easier.