The New Health Dialogue

With all the focus on health reform, we sometimes sort of forget that the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for a whole lot of other aspects of health policy. Like about a zillion. Someone I know over there suggested I check out the HHSinnovates program on the department’s HHS.gov/Open website, and it was interesting to see how this big sprawling department with 300-plus programs is trying to create a “culture of innovation.” (I know, it can be a cliché, but take a look.)

Basically everybody in HHS no matter who they are or where they work can submit a bright idea. They aren’t supposed to be abstractions, but ideas that work and can be replicated and spread and expanded. Dozens of promising ideas get posted on a secure internal website, and then everyone at HHS votes. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recognizes the top ones.

They are just about to start a second round, but I looked back at the ideas that arose in the first round. I particularly liked the Text4Baby idea. (Ok so I was also intrigued by the Personal Dust Monitor -- alas, no details on that website.)

Text4Baby is basically a free service to almost any pregnant woman or new mom (including teen moms) with a cell phone. They receive short texts with health information about pregnancy, relevant to their stage of pregnancy. And then they get more messages about keeping their baby, and themselves, well and protected during the first year of life. (It's unclear from what I read on the website whether dads can sign up.) I don’t think they have a lot of measurable data on health outcomes yet (if I’m wrong, please provide information or links to results in the comment section below). Maybe this is something I’ll check back on in the future to see how it's evolved. But here’s the gist:

Each year in the US, over 500,000 babies are born prematurely and an estimated 28,000 children die before their first birthday. Identifying and promoting promising innovations in health communication is a critical part of the HHS priority. 

HHS partnered with the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition; Voxiva, a technology company; CTIA-The Wireless Foundation; and other Federal and non-Federal organizations to create and launch text4baby, a free mobile (cell-phone) text message service that provides pregnant women and new mothers information about their health and the health of their babies. 

The text messages cover the entire period of pregnancy and the first twelve months of life, and address important health issues such as smoking, immunization, nutrition, mental health, and safe sleep. 

Since the February 2010 launch, more than 56,000 individuals have signed up for the program and receive three text messages a week.  Collectively, over 2 million text messages have been sent to program participants. Over 300 outreach partners, including state and local governments, major health insurers, and academic organizations, have signed on to promote the service.

By the way -- it got the attention of Craig Newmark (from Craigslist) who blogged about how hard it is to make innovation "part of the normal and usual way the organization works." He is impressed by the HHS approach, says it can help "fix Washington." Very tempted to see if Craigslist has anything about the Personal Dust Monitor.

(reposted just to fix a indent ...)