This blog is designed to keep you updated on the progress of TxtAid. If you’re on our mailing list, you may notice similarities between our email updates and these posts. As always, our blog provides more in-depth insights into our progress and ideas. We encourage all our friends to follow along here for the latest updates.

The idea for TxtAid first came to me while working as a medical scribe at Oak Street Health’s Lee Harvard location in Cleveland, Ohio, where I continue to work as of January 24, 2025. Oak Street Health is a Medicare clinic dedicated to serving an elderly, socioeconomically disadvantaged population. Through my experience documenting patient encounters, I have observed a pervasive trend among our patients.

Medical and health information is more accessible than ever, yet many patients struggle to access it effectively. Elderly patients, in particular, often face challenges navigating computers and using search engines to sift through pages of (sometimes conflicting) medical information to find reliable answers. Additionally, some of our patients lack access to computers at home and must rely on community computers at our centers or office visits to ask their medical questions. In many cases, our physicians also turn to search engines such as Google to find answers for our patients. Performing these searches during appointments takes valuable time away from direct patient-provider interaction—time that could be better spent addressing the patient’s needs.

Even more concerning is when patients do have access to search engines but lack the ability to discern reliable information from potentially misleading or harmful sources. As I write this blog entry today, I have just documented an encounter with a 73-year-old gentleman who had stopped taking his Eliquis medication for the past two weeks. He was alarmed by “warnings” he found online about kidney and liver damage supposedly caused by the medication. Given his history of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, this decision posed a serious risk to his health. His choice to discontinue Eliquis, based solely on a questionable source from a Google search, highlights the dangers of misinformation and the urgent need for accessible, trustworthy guidance.

While many patients lack access to computers at home, I’ve noticed through my encounters that nearly every patient has a smartphone. It’s remarkable that in today’s world, we carry a palm-sized encyclopedia filled with knowledge from every corner of the globe. Even more encouraging is that all patients know how to use their smartphones. While they may not be proficient at navigating search engines, they are universally familiar with one action: texting.

I’ve also noticed that texting is more than just a convenient way for patients to communicate—it can be a therapeutic outlet. During stressful visits, many patients instinctively turn to texting friends or loved ones for comfort, even if it occasionally frustrates their physicians.

If each patient’s smartphone serves as both a gateway to valuable medical knowledge and a source of comfort, why not combine these qualities to better serve their needs? This is the inspiration behind TxtAid. TxtAid’s interface is intentionally designed to mimic the messaging apps patients are already familiar with, creating a sense of familiarity and ease from the very start. This familiarity encourages patients to engage with the platform more readily.

With TxtAid, patients can simply input their medical inquiries in the form of a text. The system then pulls information exclusively from trusted, credible sources and delivers concise, text-based responses. By avoiding overwhelming pages of dense or conflicting information, TxtAid ensures patients receive clear, reliable answers in a format they find intuitive and accessible.”

Through this app, our goal is to make medical information more accessible to socioeconomically disadvantaged elderly patients. We want to express our heartfelt thanks for joining us on this journey. Please stay tuned for more updates in the coming months. We are truly excited to embark on this next chapter in our mission and look forward to the impact it will have.

-Peizhe (Peter) Lu, 01/24/2025