As we re-launch the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s website and the Pioneering Ideas blog, it is a good time to pause and take stock of Pioneer’s role--and, a question we get asked often: What is a pioneering idea?

Most of what the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation does is sharply focused on four targeted issues—childhood obesity, the quality and equality of health care, public health, and access to health care insurance—and two critical population groups—vulnerable populations and human capital.

The Pioneer Portfolio has a unique, but complementary, mandate. We seek to identify and explore new ideas and approaches that help shape the future of health and health care. We are dedicated to finding the next new idea – whether it is a game-changer that accelerates a breakthrough or an initial exploration into a new area. So what makes the cut? Why do we fund the ideas we do, and where do we go to find them?

In July, five grantees of the Health Games Research national program have published peer-reviewed research articles in the Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, in a special issue symposium called “Serious Games for Diabetes, Obesity, and Healthy Lifestyle.”  Their research has discovered innovative ways to improve the design and effectiveness of active video games that require physical exertion in order to play.

The studies have identified, for example, evidence-based game design strategies that motivate college students to increase their physical activity; insights into the benefits of cooperative game play that can motivate overweight and obese adolescents to put more effort into active games; and new approaches to using teamwork in active games to increase player effort and exertion.  The studies used Wii Active and Wii Fit games, stationary bikes with video screens enabling virtual tours and racing games, a motion sensor game, and an alternate reality game.  I served as a guest co-editor of the special issue symposium along with guest co-editor Deborah Thompson, PhD, an associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and a USDA/ARS scientist/nutritionist. 

Project HealthDesign is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio. This post originally appeared on the Project HealthDesign blog on June 26, 2012.

Throughout Project HealthDesign’s history, our grantee teams have worked closely with patients in order to explore the potential of personal health records (PHRs) and personal health data. As our first nine teams worked on their projects, they listened closely to patients and began hearing patients describe their health in idiosyncratic ways. Their work led to the recognition of observations of daily living (ODLs) — information about an individual’s life that is both patient-defined and patient-generated.

Project HealthDesign's five most recent grantee teams have carried this vision forward by designing five different technical systems that allow patients to track their ODL data. In these projects, patient participants have tracked a variety of ODLs, from daily activity and stress levels to socializing and moods.

But ODLs are just one type of patient-generated data. Other types include traditional patient-reported information about signs and symptoms (e.g., blood pressure, blood glucose), sensor data, patient preference data, and patient-reported quality assessment data.

Each year at the Games for Health Conference, I am excited to see how the field continues to grow. An important way our Robert Wood Johnson Foundation national program, Health Games Research, helps move the field forward is to ensure that our colleagues – game developers, health care providers, researchers, funding agencies, investors, policy-makers, parents, educators, and more – have access to the information and resources they need.

We are pleased to announce at this year’s conference that our Health Games Research online searchable database has been updated with new search and save features that make it easier to use and a more powerful search tool. The Health Games Research Database is the largest publicly available repository of information about health games, with extensive information about games, publications, resources, organizations, and events.

Last Friday, Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, PhD, Project HealthDesign’s national program director, and Nikolai Kirienko, co-project director for Project HealthDesign’s Crohnology.MD team, testified at a hearing on the incorporation of patient-generated data into Meaningful Use Stage 3 criteria. The hearing was organized by the Meaningful Use Workgroup of the Federal Health IT Policy Committee.

Meaningful Use Stage 3, scheduled to roll out in 2016, will set requirements for health care providers seeking incentive payments for the adoption of electronic health records. Brennan’s testimony drew upon the experiences of all 14 Project HealthDesign teams working with patients and clinicians to collect and track patient-generated data. Previously, Brennan provided testimony to set requirements for the first stage of Meaningful Use.

Kirienko’s testimony drew upon the experiences of Project HealthDesign’s Chronology.MD team; he also spoke as an advocate for patient engagement in health and health care through collaboration with clinicians around patient-generated data. His testimony focused on the need for patient access to electronic health records and the need for standards for dynamic patient engagement on mobile devices.

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