Institute For The Future

Teach me how to take better care of myself while I am on the go

For our conference last fall on Mobile Health, I was tasked with finding an employer that was providing to its employees some form of mobile health.  We ended up bringing in an HR person from Humana, one of the largest health plans in the country, because it offered its associates an innovative weight loss program—Sensei for Weight Loss(TM)—from Sensei, a technology company owned by Humana.

Sensei, which means teacher in Japanese, functions as a "personal digital coach" available online and by mobile phone.  It is

 

like having your own nutritionist and health coach at your fingertips, delivering customized meal plans, weekly shopping lists, goal tracking and motivational support to a user's mobile phone display or personal Web page - prompting consumers at point-of-decision moments to make healthier choices.

 

Sensei uses mobile technology to promote behavior change by personalizing interactions with the user and maximizing convenience. Throughout the day, the program sends interactive messages to the user's mobile phone with customized, specific recommendations, reminders, and motivational tips. (For more about how text messaging can be used to promote behavior change, see the website for last year's Texting4Health conference, held at BJ Fogg's Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford and co-sponsored by the Institute.)  

Now Sensei has introduced a new teaching tool for mobile health: My Diabetes Guide.  The press release, referring My Diabetes Guide as a "trusted educator," notes that this mobile phone application does more than track blood glucose levels and nutritional information. It takes patients, one screen at a time, through all fundamental elements of diabetes management. 

 

The user’s mobile device now informs a patient about what to do, what to know, what to eat, and what to ask their doctors, as it personally guides him or her to better diabetes self-management. All content is downloaded directly to the mobile phone in a well organized, user-friendly manner.

 

The iPhone application is currently available at the iTunes' App Stone for 99 cents; it will soon be available for other mobile phones, as well.

I, thankfully, am not diabetic or pre-diabetic, so I don't have the need for a program like My Diabetes Guide. But if I was trying to manage a chronic illness, I would appreciate having a tool in my hand—a teacher at my side—that would help remind me of the dos and don'ts of taking care of myself.