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Nine research teams have developed prototypes of technologies to support personal health records following 18 months of research. The prototypes range from a medication management system to help children with cystic fibrosis manage their disease to a “conversational assistant” that helps people with congestive heart failure manage their health from home.

The effort is supported by Project HealthDesign, a $5 million program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Over the next several months, the Project HealthDesign teams will publish details about their findings and attempt to extend the use of their applications to the clinical practices connected to their institutions. The projects include:

*  A team at Vanderbilt University designed a PHR application to help children with cystic fibrosis play a larger role in self-care. Team members developed a device that can be incorporated into a stuffed animal or cell phone to work with the PHR to help children take the right medications at the right times, alert parents and caregivers if doses are missed and manage refills.

* The University of Rochester team designed a prototype system that uses a “conversational assistant” to provide congestive heart failure patients with a “daily check-up.” Through voice-activated questions and responses or text-typed chat, patients share information relevant to their condition. The computer interprets that input to provide personalized recommendations based on established guidelines and collects longitudinal data to share with the patients and their care providers.

* Stanford University and Art Center College of Design designed a set of multimedia PHR tools to help adolescents with chronic illness communicate with their providers and others about their health.

* T.R.U.E Research Foundation designed a PHR to help people with diabetes understand and track their self-care.

* RTI International designed a PHR to help sedentary adults
become more active. Through an interactive Web portal, patients input personalized information on their activity level, lifestyle and goals. They then receive customized plans to increase activity levels.

* The University of California, San Francisco team designed a PHR to help breast cancer patients. The PHR helps women better understand and coordinate their care plan by integrating information on upcoming doctor appointments, prescriptions and other details and syncing that data with their personal electronic calendars.

* A team at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health
Sciences Center designed a portable touch-screen tablet computer that older patients with complex medication regimens could receive upon hospital discharge. The tablet helps users organize prescriptions, stay on track with taking doses and avoid medication errors, while also syncing information with their doctors' records.
 
* The University of Massachusetts Medical School team designed a PDA to help patients with chronic pain manage their medications.

*  A team from the University of Washington designed a PHR
to help people with diabetes record blood glucose levels and other information, such as blood pressure, food intake and exercise levels. The application wirelessly uploads these readings over a cell phone to the person's PHR and their medical provider.
 
In addition to the design prototypes, Project HealthDesign worked with a technical team from Sujansky & Associates LLC, San Carlos, Calif., to develop and release a set of functional requirements and technical specifications that enable different PHR applications to securely share information, with the consumer controlling who has access to the data.  

Project HealthDesign, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is funded through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio, which supports projects that may lead to significant breakthroughs in health care. Additional support is provided by the California HealthCare Foundation.

Videos depicting the PHR application prototypes and more information on the project can be found at projecthealthdesign.org.