Groups sink $5.3M into PHR apps

Over the next 18 months, researchers will conduct a new, ambitious effort aimed at helping consumers use IT to manage their health. Participants in the Project HealthDesign initiative, which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and California HealthCare Foundation, will develop tools intended to improve the PHR model. Unlike other PHR development efforts, which often create technical silos of their own, the grant teams are designing applications that can be built upon a common platform. The teams will spend six months developing PHR applications, then test the prototypes with targeted populations.

The planned projects span an intriguing range of important clinical problems. They include a tool providing customized care plans for breast cancer patients, self-management apps for heart failure/heart disease patients and diabetics, tools improving chronic disease med management between physician office visits, a PHR helping chronically-ill children manage their medication and PDA applications helping pain patients manage their meds.

Get more background on the PHR development initiative:
- read this RWJF press release [1]
- get more background on Project HealthDesign [2]

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Vendor trials cellphone-based diabetes monitoring. Report [4]
Remote monitoring can be hampered by IT, workflow issues. Editorial [5]