Health-focused mobile messaging company Voxiva, best known for powering HHS's Text4Baby initiative, is partnering with health insurance company Harvard Pilgrim Health Care to make its Care4Life type 2 diabetes management platform available to Harvard Pilgrim members.

Harvard Pilgrim is a Boston-based not-for-profit health plan with more than a million members across New England. MobiHealthNews hasn't written about the health plan since it partnered with smart pillbox maker MedMinder back in 2009.

Voxiva first launched Care4Life in October 2012, in a pilot with multispecialty care organization HealthInsight, which is a partner in Utah's ONC-funded Beacon Community. Care4Life leverages a website and text messages to deliver education, medication and appointment reminders, blood glucose tracking, weight and exercise goal setting and tracking, and a motivational virtual coach to people with diabetes. It's available in English and Spanish, with content developed by Theresa Garnero, author of “Your First Year With Diabetes.” In January, Voxiva added additional content from the American Diabetes Association to the program.

Earlier this month, Voxiva announced another Care4Life customer, Gateway Health, a Pennsylvania managed care organization that works with 300,000 low-income and at-risk patients.

Since launching the service last year, Voxiva has gathered some survey data on the effectiveness of Care4Life, but the sample size for the survey was not disclosed. They found that 97 percent of users would recommend Care4Life to other people with diabetes. Eighty-six percent said it helped them set health goals and work toward achieving them, 85 percent reported improved knowledge of diabetes and how to manage their condition and the same number said it helped them remember to take medications and attend doctors' appointments.

In addition, Voxiva will soon be publishing a clinical trial that will provide harder efficacy data about the service. According to ClinicalTrials.gov, that study was completed at HealthInsight in February. It looked at change in A1C as a primary outcome measure, with BMI, blood pressure control, and "improved knowledge of self-care and disease management practices" as secondary measures.