A new study published today in JAMA reveals text message reminders for patients who delay refilling their medications didn’t help improve how regularly they refilled medications over a year.

The study enrolled over 9,000 patients in a randomized pragmatic clinical trial and included representation from a diverse population across subgroups, including females, Hispanic ethnicity and Spanish-speaking patients, all groups who can be traditionally underrepresented in clinical trials.

“There are a lot of studies that focus on using technology to improve healthcare behaviors. However, it’s unclear and under-studied whether text message reminders are effective for a sustained period, given they have become a commonly used practice in healthcare settings. That’s one of the reasons why we wanted to focus on text message reminders for refilling medication in this study, which we were hoping would also decrease serious health issues,” said first author Michael Ho, MD, professor adjoint in the department of medicine and cardiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.