Health & pandemic alerts

Healthcare systems are already using SMS for various applications – from awareness-raising campaigns to medicine reminders.

With awareness-raising alerts, subscribers can receive hints and tips on a broad range of health-related issues, which can be customized according to the subscriber’s profile. Sending such information via SMS is particularly beneficial in developing communities with poor access to the internet and health information in general. 

At a more time-critical level, outbound SMS can be used to send medicine reminders to help patients to take their medication at the right time. Similarly, alerting patients when a test result is ready to be delivered is a convenient for the patient.

Such notifications can also be used in combination with travel alerts: whenever tourists plan to travel to exotic destinations, they can receive immediate information via SMS regarding malaria and vaccinations, as well as hints on illness prevention.

Time-critical alerts are also very important in pandemic and epidemic alerts. In situations such as the recent swine flu epidemic, using a SMS delivery service to alert the community on symptoms, incubation period, vaccination and procedures is a fast, reliable way to spread the message to as many people as possible across various cities, regions and countries.

Last but not least, health alerts can also be integrated with appointment reminders, reminding patients of their doctor’s appointments via SMS. Patients can confirm, re-schedule or cancel the appointment just by replying the text message. Such reminders can be integrated into the healthcare centers’ systems, enhancing speed and efficiency in coordinating appointments and avoiding time-consuming confirmation phone calls.

By using SMS as a reminder mechanism, service providers can ensure that all personal health data is kept secure and only sent to the appropriate recipient or as dictated by regional regulations.