Sex::Tech: Using Technology to Reach Youth with HIV and Sexual Health Information

This week's post is by Jennie Anderson and Josie Halpern-Finnerty, AIDS.gov.

Last week at ISIS, Inc.'s Sex::Tech conference , we heard from leading voices in the field that we need to engage with our young audiences and use the tools they use to provide HIV and sexual health information.

As ISIS Executive Director Deb Levine said in her opening remarks, we must focus on being accessible, effective, relevant, innovative (in both our work and how we evaluate it), and ready to engage our communities in our work. A talented group of young African American students powerfully demonstrated this message in an interactive theater piece, BuckWorld One , which dealt with some of the factors affecting the choices young people make about sexual health.

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.

Text Messaging for HIV Appointment and Medication Reminders - Part I

We’ve discussed some of the uses of text messaging (also known as Short Messaging Service , or SMS) for HIV prevention and testing in previous posts (“R U Texting?” and “Texting 4 Health”). For the next few posts we’ll concentrate on using text messages for appointment and medication reminders. More and more clients are choosing to receive reminders about their upcoming visits or medications via text messages (limited to 140 characters) which are delivered to their mobile phones.

Justin Goforth,
Whitman-Walker Clinic

This week we’ll address some of the reasons why your organization or clinic might want to consider using texting reminders. In the following weeks, we’ll talk about how it’s done, the costs, and privacy considerations.