New Media Presentation at Office of Minority Health Leadership Summit

This week is the Office of Minority Health's Third Leadership Summit on Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health. AIDS.gov gave a pre-summit workshop (more details to come on Tuesday about that) and a presentation about innovative strategies for public health. View today's presentation on Slideshare and we'll post more information on Tuesday.

Text Messaging for HIV Appointment and Medication Reminders - Part IV

This week, we're concluding our four-part series on texting appointment and medication reminders. After talking about why, how, and costs, today's post addresses privacy.

Howard Brown Health Center

What are some of the potential privacy concerns around texting appointment and medication reminders?

Texting appointment reminders is a new way of communicating, and therefore brings up concerns about HIPAA compliance. Our colleagues suggested the following important things to remember:

Text Messaging for HIV Appointment and Medication Reminders - Part III

In addition to why and how an organization might set up texting reminders, we're often asked about the cost. In tight economic times, this is a significant concern for many organizations. Can the cost of text messaging reminders ultimately save your organization time and money? Here's some information to help you decide.

What does implementing and maintaining texting reminders cost?

There isn't one answer when it comes to the cost of setting up text-messaging appointment reminders––it depends on what program you use and who is involved. As Whitman-Walker Clinic's Director of Medical Adherence, Justin Goforth, told us (and as we discussed in our post on how to use text messaging ), if you're encouraging your clients to use free online appointment reminders, the cost is really the staffs' time to learn the program and show it to your clients. But if you are planning to use texting as part of your appointment reminder system, you may want to consider using software that integrates the reminders with your clients' medical records and ensures that texts are delivered and kept private.

Text Messaging for HIV Appointment and Medication Reminders - Part II

This week, we return to our series on using text messaging for HIV appointment and medication reminders. We are dedicating four posts to this topic, which often comes up in conversations between Miguel Gomez, AIDS.gov's Director, and AIDS service providers. We recently discussed some of the reasons why an AIDS service organization might want to use text messaging. This week we're focusing on the how. In weeks to come we'll be addressing costs and privacy.

Promoting Routine HIV Testing For National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

During the week leading up to National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day , we reinforce the Federal recommendations for routine HIV testing in healthcare settings. Here’s what the CDC’s Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing of Adults, Adolescents, and Pregnant Women in Health-Care Settings say: