Text4baby receives high grades

Surveyed participants in text4baby, a health information text messaging service for pregnant women and mothers of newborn infants, reported high levels of user satisfaction, according to researchers from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and the National Latino Research Center (NLRC).

Women enrolled in the free service send a text and provide their baby’s due date or birthday to begin receiving text messages containing appointment reminders and medical information relevant to the mothers of young babies.

To determine how useful the service has been, researchers interviewed 160 San Diego-area women who received its text message updates from text4baby. The women overwhelmingly approved, giving the service an average grade of 8.5 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Additionally, 63 percent of respondents reported that text4baby reminded them of an appointment or the need for an immunization; 75 percent reported that text4baby informed them of medical warning signs that they’d been unaware of; and 71 percent reported speaking to a physician about a topic they learned of through text4baby.

Researchers from UCSD and the NLRC were the first to conduct an evaluation of the service, which reaches nearly 250,000 users nationwide according to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s blog.

Around the web

The American College of Cardiology has shared its perspective on new CMS payment policies, highlighting revenue concerns while providing key details for cardiologists and other cardiology professionals. 

As debate simmers over how best to regulate AI, experts continue to offer guidance on where to start, how to proceed and what to emphasize. A new resource models its recommendations on what its authors call the “SETO Loop.”

FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, MD, said the clinical community needs to combat health misinformation at a grassroots level. He warned that patients are immersed in a "sea of misinformation without a compass."

Trimed Popup
Trimed Popup