Mission: To empower healthcare organizations with mobile technology designed to improve health literacy and self-health management while fostering more efficient care delivery.

Background: Chronically ill patients, especially those in low-income communities, often struggle with medication adherence and disease self-management. This can lead to poor health outcomes and billions of dollars in unnecessary healthcare costs annually. After noticing significant gaps in patient education among the homeless and low-income residents of Galveston, Texas, Vineet Singal, then a volunteer at a local free clinic, enlisted fellow social entrepreneurs Cecilia Corral and Manuel Rivera to found CareMessage, a Web platform that makes it easy for healthcare organizations to use text and voice messaging to improve patient engagement and self-care. Incubated at startup accelerator Y Combinator, which provided Singal and his team with the business skills needed to turn their idea into a viable, growth-driven organization, the organization subsequently raised some $6 million, including a $2.3 million grant from Google and $1.5 million from the Pershing Square Foundation, and today partners with large healthcare organizations that pay to use its technology. The resulting revenue is then used to help offset the operating costs of free and charitable clinics around the country. 

Outstanding Web Features: The site's platform page demonstrates how healthcare providers can use any Internet-enabled device to access CareMessage's cloud-based suite of tools to create automated, interactive conversations with their patients. This includes sending pre-appointment information and appointment reminders; sending a single message to a group of patients or on a recurring basis; creating surveys and customized messages appropriate for diverse or low-literacy populations; and/or automatically creating patient profiles using existing data. Visitors also can access programs that CareMessage's team of medical doctors and public health professionals have created to help patients manage a wide range of chronic conditions. The programs are designed with the specific challenges of each condition in mind, and the text messaging campaigns they serve work to support, educate, and activate patients by guiding them through the challenging first steps of a self-care program and helping them develop long-lasting habits. The site also features evidence-based research on the use of mobile technology, as well as information about how CareMessage serves healthcare organizations such as clinics and hospitals, government and community entities, researchers, and community organizers. The site also has a list of the organization's major partners and supporters and information about the engineers, physicians, designers, and scientists who comprise the CareMessage team. In addition, visitors can stay up-to-date on the latest news from the organization and its partners via the CareMessage blog or through its social media profiles on Twitter and Facebook.