College students have been the visionaries behind a number of game-changing innovations in recent years, from Facebook to RWJF grantee Health Leads (if you aren’t familiar with Health Leads, I highly recommend you check out their model). So if the next big idea that completely transforms health and health care in this country comes from someone under the age of 22, we here at Pioneer won’t be surprised.

And we’re doing our part to speed things along. I’m thrilled to share that we recently awarded a grant to Princeton University’s Keller Center, whose mission is to educate leaders for a technology-driven society. The Center will use this funding to offer courses on health care entrepreneurship, as well as to partner with Woodrow Wilson School's Center for Health and Wellbeing on a Global Health Policy Scholars program.

Determined to increase my productivity and keep my desk free from clutter, I recently read an excellent book that several friends recommended to me called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. We at Pioneer talk quite a bit about what it takes to change behavior – what kinds of innovations can we support that will help more people embrace healthy habits? Implementing this book’s recommendations reminded me just how stressful change can be – even change that’s designed to reduce stress! And it got me thinking about how important it is to base any innovation on a real understanding of the people it effects.

I recently spent the day at the MedStar Institute for Innovation -– at Pioneer, we’re always interested in learning more about other units within large organizations that are focused on innovation (and we love to play host, too). Anyway, the folks at MedStar spoke quite a bit about human factors engineering. If you aren’t familiar (I wasn’t), human factors engineering is about accepting the fact that humans will inevitably make mistakes, and designing environments and tools that take that inevitability into account, so that the impact of mistakes is significantly decreased. Human factors engineering often goes hand-in-hand with extensive usability testing.

From: Christine Nieves

To: Paul Tarini, Beth Toner and Thomas Goetz

Date: June 4, 2013

Why didn't you warn me that this conference is so enormous? Wow! As a first-time attendee, it is hard to believe that Health Datapalooza started just four years ago with 40 or so participants in one room. On Monday, more than 2,000 people gathered under one roof to advocate for the same cause, and I am enjoying learning from so many of them.

From: Christine Nieves

To: Paul Tarini, Beth Toner and Thomas Goetz

Date: May 31, 2013

This is my first time attending Health Datapalooza, and I am intrigued. I am fascinated by the fact that there will be a reception at the National Zoo on Sunday evening and a 7 a.m. run to kick us off Tuesday morning. It's not just any run, though—it will be led by Bryan Sivak, chief technology officer of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That’s what I call intense!

“Smart” phones are rapidly becoming ubiquitous; almost half of all American adults own one. Every one of those phones has the potential to be a health companion for its owner, providing reminders about pills to take or tips about healthier foods to eat. Phones can also collect valuable health data—such as the quality of the air we breathe or the number of steps we walk. For people with a chronic disease such as diabetes, a smart phone can track the kinds of meals that spike their blood sugar or the side effects of their medications; it can even relay that information back to a doctor, who can then help patients better manage their health.

To date, the major tool for harnessing the power of mobile technology has been the app. Just like there are apps for weather, news, or restaurant reviews, there are apps for health. They can do amazing things, from measuring and monitoring, to imaging and predicting. But, there aren’t just a handful of them—there are thousands! And, that’s where the Heritage Open mHealth Challenge comes in.