The U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra told attendees at the Health 2.0 event in San Francisco this morning that next week the White House will announce a mobile health initiative it has been working on.
The only mobile health offering that the White House has been working on to our knowledge is Text4Baby a service that will provide free tips via text messages to mothers three times a week before their baby’s birth. The service's reminders include ones for taking multi-vitamins, getting flu shots, and so on. After the birth, the mother is reminded about vaccinations, and other health issues. The service has some 300 text messages in the hopper.
The White House has been working alongside Voxiva, the National Healthy Mothers-Healthy Babies Coalition, CDC, and others plan to launch the free Text4Baby service because the United States has one of the worst infant mortality rates, which is highly concentrated in lower-educated, minority populations. It just so happens that the technology penetration in this demographic shows that 85 percent use text messaging.
We'll bring you all the details from the announcement next week when it breaks.
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