Textual healing
Text messages can now save lives, thanks to Serge Loncar’s new company.
Loncar is the founder and chief executive office of CareSpeak Communications, a health communication company. Created in 2007, CareSpeak sends text messages to registered users reminding them to take their medication. The results of a study using Loncar’s system were published in October’s issue of the medical journal Pediatrics.
‘Your personal cell phone is the thing you always carry with you. It’s a great tool for people to manage their health,’ Loncar said.
Loncar originally developed the company for diabetics, but has expanded it to include anyone with a chronic illness that requires medication or anyone taking a regular medication, from birth control to inhalers for asthma patients.
A user would register for the text messages on the CareSpeak Web site with their phone numbers, the specific medication they’re taking and what times they want to receive a reminder.
For Loncar’s diabetic users, their glucose levels can also be recorded online through the text messages. CareSpeak developed a chart that tracks the trends in patient’s blood sugar levels. This is convenient for doctor visits, Loncar said, because the charts can be printed out.
Loncar said the company is trying to improve patients’ compliance – the amount that a patient sticks to advice from their physicians, namely the routine that patients take their medication, he said.
‘If you look at how compliant people are on their medication, up to 50 percent stop their drug therapy within the first 45 days,’ Loncar said.
Tamir Miloh, assistant professor of pediatrics and surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, wanted to measure the compliance of his young liver transplant patients. He conducted a study in 2008 using Loncar’s text message system.
‘As soon as patients hit puberty, they felt that they were untouchable. They also have very busy lives. They would stop taking their medications,’ Miloh said.
Loncar said that noncompliance could be worse for an organ-transplant patient.
‘You need to be on immunosuppressant drugs for your entire life. You’d need to be hospitalized if you don’t get those medications. It could be very expensive if you need to have an organ re-transplant. It’s just not worth it,’ Loncar said.
Miloh used 41 liver-transplant patients in the study, ranging from ages 1 to 27. Patients, or their parents, would receive a text message, alerting them to take or administer the medication. The text message requests the patient respond to the text message, confirming he or she has taken the medication.
If a patient does not respond to the text reminder, a physician or parent can be alerted. This develops a much-needed connection between the patient and their parents or physician, Loncar said.
‘The doctor or a parent can get a text that says little Susie didn’t respond to the message. They can call Susie up and tell her to take her pills,’ he said. ‘It’s an extra reminder.’
Miloh said that they would take monthly blood samples from the patients to see if they were actually keeping up with their medication’s regimen.
‘The significance is the blood work. That shows that this system works,’ Loncar said.
During the course of the study, compliance of the patients went up 69 percent from the year before, Miloh said. There were fewer episodes of liver rejections after the transplant, from 12 cases before the study to two after patients used CareSpeak, he said.
The only problem that Miloh encountered during the study is the phone expense.
‘We had a drop rate because the patients needed to suspend their mobile systems,’ he said. ‘I work in New York City with many underprivileged patients. They lost their service, so they weren’t able to receive the alerts.’
Miloh is currently working with Loncar to bring the text messaging system to hospitals around the country.
‘I’m talking with one center and people seem to be very enthusiastic. We just need to get a grant for the study, make sure everyone is on board and move ahead,’ Miloh said.
The pair is also working to provide cell phones to patients for free, as well as add motivational messages to the system. For example, if a patient had a 50 percent compliance rate, a text would be sent to remind a patient to take their medication more frequently or respond to the messages, Loncar said.
‘The key message is that people can manage their health; text messaging is the most accessible and useful way to do that,’ he said.
Published on November 8, 2009 at 12:00 pm
