Kaiser Permanente's Director of Internet Services, Kendra Markle told attendees at the Healthcare Unbound event here in Seattle that "wireless technology is revolutionizing health behavior change tools." These tools can now reach people anytime, including during those moments directly before we make health-related decisions, she said.
These tools can now reach people right when they sit down in front of their food, Markle said. Once location-based services are added into that picture, real-time monitoring of eating habits can take on a whole new (and creepy?) context as caregivers or friends can keep tabs on where we eat. Mobile social networks are already leveraging location-based services like "friend finders" so it's not a stretch to see these services applied to changing health behaviors, too.
Markle offered up a great example for mood tracking via mobiles: HappyFactor.com, which enables users to track their moods through text message responses. At random times throughout the day, HappyFactor asks its users how happy they are and also what they are doing. The service then compiles the responses and maps them against the activities reported to determine which activities make the user happiest and which tend to bring them down. Users can then visit the site to review the trends and use that data to make better decisions in the future. (To be clear, Happy Factor was not developed by Kaiser Permanente.)
HappyFactor offers a similar service to the text message-based mood tracking service Living Profiles, which debuted at the Health 2.0 conference in Boston in April. Living Profiles plans to mine teenagers' text messages for key words that are indicative of moods. The group tracks and categorizes words the teens use and then gives them updates that help the teens understand changes month-over-month.
For more on HappyFactor, check out the site here
For more on Living Profiles, check out this post from our Health 2.0 coverage
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Kaiser Permanente has plans beyond text message appointment reminders
Kaiser Permanente to rollout nationwide text message reminders
