Tech & Tools

Active, Independent Older Adults Using Cell Phone Texting Reminders

The Front Porch Center for Technology Innovation and Wellbeing, a nonprofit organization founded on the belief that technology innovation plays a vital role in enhancing well-being, was awarded a mobile health (mHealth) grant from the Center for Technology and Aging for its Minding Our Meds: Demonstrating Senior Medication Adherence With Cell Phone Texting Reminders project. The project will address medication adherence among active, independent older adults using a cell phone texting service and focus on 150 adults aged 50+ living across Front Porch communities and neighboring senior centers. 

The goals of Minding Our Meds are to demonstrate that mobile alerts and monitoring lead to improved medication adherence in chronic disease management and to create a replicable and sustainable model for using an mHealth technology solution for medication adherence.

“Given that 91% of persons age 57 to 85 take at least one medication weekly, we understand the importance of finding widely available and affordable solutions that can be tailored to meet seniors’ needs,” says Kari Olson, president of the Front Porch Center.

To improve medication adherence, Minding Our Meds will deploy CareSpeak Communication’s mHealth platform, a two-way short message service-based medication reminder service that is available on virtually any cell phone or smartphone device with a texting plan, and conduct pre- and postintervention surveys to collect data to track medication adherence, user satisfaction with the technology, and overall health and well-being. It will also develop a replicable model that combines education, training, and Web-based resources with lessons and techniques that can improve medication adherence. The project will work with One Economy Digital Connectors as part of its community service projects to provide training in showing older adults how to set up and access CareSpeak accounts through its Web-based dashboard.

— Source: The Front Porch Center for Technology Innovation and Wellbeing