The researchers used an interactive text messaging solution from mPulse Mobile to encourage partially adherent and nonadherent Kaiser Permanente Southern California Medicare members with one or more chronic diseases to refill medications.
For the three-month program, 12,272 members received text messages, while 76,068 did not. Both groups also received other forms of refill and adherence outreach interventions, including phone calls, email messages and robo-calls.
The researchers found the text messaging group had a 14.07 percent higher refill rate than the group that did not receive text messages.
“The results showed a strong benefit of using this text messaging solution to improve medication refill rates among Medicare patients,” the study authors concluded. “These findings also support using interactive text messaging as a cost-effective, convenient and user-friendly solution for patient engagement.”
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