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Mobile Health Interventions encourages good health via SMS

Mobile Health Interventions has launched Health Txts and Custom Txts, a program to help consumers change unhealthy behaviors to sending text messages to encourage self-help goals.

The company launched Health Txts to be used with various self-improvement goals such as eating healthier and reducing drinking. Custom Txts is an open access application that lets healthcare professionals create their own text-messaging programs for clients.

?The strategy is to encourage people to use the power and simplicity of SMS to improve their health and wellbeing,? said Fred Muench, Ph.D., founder of Mobile Health Interventions, New York.

?Ultimately, people want a pill,? he said. ?We all look for quick fixes to a problem.

?We have tried to merge the ?pill? concept with the reality that real change is work and you need constant motivation to change.?

Mobile Health Interventions was founded in 2008 to provide effective, user-friendly services on the mobile device.

Mobilizing self-help
HealthTxts was specifically designed to help consumers stick to a self-improvement goal.

The Health Txts service has two components.

One is messages Mobile Health Intervention created for certain behaviors.

The other is where consumers write messages to themselves based on guided questions to help them change their behavior.

The service combines using reminders in the consumer?s natural environment with messages that foster behavior change and motivation.

Dr. Muench said Health Txts was designed to remind and motivate consumers when they are most tempted to ignore their goals and seek immediate rewards rather than doing what is best for them in the long run.

Custom Txts was designed specifically for professionals and healthcare organizations to create their own mobile messaging programs for clients.

?Changing behavior is very difficult,? Dr. Muench said. ?There is an emerging research on the power of SMS to help people change.

?It?s so simple on the one hand, but whenever one attempts to use the word simple with behavior change you are bound to run into difficulties,? he said.

Healthy SMS
Consumers have to sign up for the alerts via the Health Txts Web site.

Dr. Muench said he wants the service to be free for the near future so consumers can test it out and see if it works for them.

Mobile Health Interventions is self-funded.

Consumers cannot sign-up via SMS short code because they have to agree to the terms of use and Mobile Health Interventions encourages them to write self-motivational statements to help them change.

?Getting a message that someone else wrote ? while helpful ? will not have the same effect as you telling yourself why it is important to change,? Dr. Muench said.

?Email reminders don't work as well as SMS,? he said. ?You need to get the message to not drink on the way to the bar ? not when you get to work the next morning.?