Partners Healthcare

At Partners HealthCare, using technology to improve patient care isn’t limited to our hospitals. We continue to look for creative and new ways to improve the health of children and adults in our community, outside the walls of our hospitals. Here’s one example. The Boston Business Journal recently wrote: “Someone at Partners HealthCare had a great idea to improve pre-natal care among young women – text them.”

Partners HealthCare’s text-messaging program has been successful in encouraging pregnant women in Lynn to get the proper amount of pre-natal care. In a pilot program, Lynn Community Health Center (LCHC) and Partners HealthCare’s Center for Connected Health enrolled 25 pregnant women in a program that offered informational and supportive text messages throughout their pregnancies and two months after their babies were born. The goal was to offer extra support to younger women who often have limited support systems in place, and who would truly benefit from additional reminders about how to have a healthy pregnancy. A recent finding by the Nielsen Company showed text messages as a preferred form of communication among young people, with teens sending and receiving up to 100 texts a day. The women in the Lynn program, age 22 on average, received between one and four text messages per week. Results of patient surveys and review of the data showed women who got text messages from their clinical team received the recommended level of pre-natal care 9% more than other pregnant women who did not get text messages.

Patients in the text messaging group liked the program because it helped them feel connected to their caregivers during their pregnancy. Patients told the Lynn Item they would recommend this kind of program to other pregnant women. One patient described the text message program by saying, “It made me feel like I had more support. It provides you a number to call, so it was like someone was on call for me.”

“We were extremely pleased to see the effective and positive response to our first experience with a text-messaging campaign,” said Lori Abrams Berry, Executive Director of Lynn Community Health Center. “We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Partners HealthCare and North Shore Medical Center (NSMC) in order to provide the most innovative and quality care possible to our patients.”

The text messages were one-way and designed to encourage patients with positive reminders and educational messages. Text messages were offered in English or Spanish, and each message included a phone number to reach the OB clinical team. Some of the messages patients received were, “Hi, it’s your OB team reminding you to count your baby’s kicks.  Call us @ (781) 581-3900 if there is a change in frequency,” or “Your OB team is checking in.  Have you scheduled your ultrasound?  It’s baby picture time! Let us know if we can help.”

Partners HealthCare and North Shore Medical Center have collaborated with Lynn Community Health Center on a wide range of initiatives over the past 10 years. The texting program for young pregnant women is just the latest example of our shared commitment to helping patients gain access to the highest quality and cost-effective care possible.

The text messaging and evaluation were provided by the Center for Connected Health, a division of Partners HealthCare, which is developing programs to move care from the hospital or doctor’s office into the day-to-day lives of patients. “We are using technology in exciting and new ways to deliver quality care to patients, connect providers and patients and provide educational messages and support. Text messaging is proving to be an effective way to engage patients in their care,” said Joseph C. Kvedar, MD, Director Center for Connected Health. “Our program with the Lynn Community Health Center is a great example of how simple technology can help to improve care and outcomes.”