News Release

Improving care for low-birth-weight infants

'Project HealthDesign' grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation integrates daily information about babies' health into clinical care

Grant and Award Announcement

University of California - Irvine

Irvine, Calif., March 5, 2010 — Researchers at UC Irvine and the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU) will monitor the day-to-day health of low-birth-weight babies and their parents as part of a comprehensive initiative designed to combat chronic illnesses associated with low-weight births.

Gillian Hayes, UCI informatics professor, and Karen Cheng, CDU psychiatry and human behavior professor, were awarded a $480,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to explore how recorded observations of daily living (ODLs) can be used to improve clinical care for low-weight babies.

Hayes and Cheng were among five research teams in the nation selected by RWJF through its Project HealthDesign: Rethinking the Power and Potential of Personal Health Records national program to receive two-year grants that will test how health information technology can help people become more informed patients and better healthcare consumers. The grantees will work with patients to explore how day-to-day information – such as stress levels of caregivers of premature infants and medication-taking routines of seniors at risk of cognitive decline – can be collected, interpreted and acted upon by patients as well as clinicians in real-world clinical settings.

For their project, Hayes and Cheng will use mobile technology to collect and report ODLs that can enable changes in clinical practices and alert healthcare providers earlier to potential problems. The team will develop a mobile application for parents of preterm infants, called FitBaby, which builds on Hayes' past work with Dr. Dan Cooper, a UCI professor of pediatrics. The system enables parents to easily record ODLs on smartphones, including feeding times, weight measurements, baby's activity and how parents deal with the stress of caring for an at-risk infant. The system also automatically tracks some observations through sensors in the environment.

"This work is particularly innovative in that we make it convenient for parents to record daily information about their babies by automatically sensing a number of important indicators," Hayes said. "Pediatricians will have access to the information to make earlier diagnoses, which can improve the health outcomes of babies and caregivers."

"Parent well-being is often ignored in infant care," Cheng said. "By helping parents monitor and understand the patterns of their own emotional and physical well-being, we believe that parents will be encouraged to take better care for themselves, leading to better quality of care for the babies."

Earlier Project HealthDesign work revealed that the data needed to inform day-to-day health decisions came less often from information contained in official medical records and more from information gained by monitoring health in everyday life. The new projects will build on that work.

"We know patients want better relationships with their clinicians and to make the most of their time during a doctor's visit. Through Project HealthDesign, the patients and the clinicians will be working together to collect and interpret insights from the patient's everyday life. This process will help empower people to be more informed patients and allow clinicians to determine if their care plan is working," said Stephen Downs, S.M., assistant vice president for RWJF's Health Group.

Since its launch in 2006, RWJF has committed $9.5 million in grants and technical assistance to the program, led by a team of experts working in health information technology and patient-centered care at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Project HealthDesign is supported by RWJF's Pioneer Portfolio, which funds innovative ideas and projects that can lead to significant breakthroughs in the future of health and health care.

In addition, the program provides legal and regulatory compliance support to grantees and contributes to the public discourse on the legal and regulatory aspects of capturing ODLs and integrating them into care processes. The program will develop resources around the cross-cutting issues regarding use and safe integrations of ODLs as well as specifically advise grantee teams on applicable law and regulations that may alter the consequences of data-sharing between patients and clinicians.

Hayes' research interests are in human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing. She studies record-keeping technologies, particularly in natural settings, such as the home. She also focuses on the application and uses of ubiquitous computing and collaborative technologies in the areas of education and healthcare.

Cheng is a social psychologist whose research focuses on the issues affecting use of computer technology in healthcare settings. Her work evaluates the efficacy of electronic versus paper-based data collection, and the acceptance of mobile health technologies among underserved populations, locally and in developing countries.

Throughout the course of the program, all grantee teams will provide frequent updates about their work through the Project HealthDesign blog and other interactive features. To learn more, visit www.projecthealthdesign.org.

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About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pioneer Portfolio: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and healthcare issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and healthcare of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. The Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio supports innovative ideas and projects that may lead to important breakthroughs in health and health care. Projects in the Pioneer Portfolio are future-oriented and look beyond conventional thinking to explore solutions at the cutting edge of health and health care. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime. Visit www.rwjf.org/pioneer.

About the University of Wisconsin: Founded in 1848, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of the nation's oldest and most comprehensive public research universities, with more than 41,000 enrolled students participating in 136 undergraduate degrees, 155 master's programs and 110 doctoral programs, and a research enterprise that generates more than $700 million in annual extramural support.

About Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science: CDU is a private nonprofit, nonsectarian, minority-serving medical and health sciences institution. Located in the Watts-Willowbrook area of South Los Angeles, CDU has graduated more than 550 medical doctors, 2,500 post-graduate physicians, more than 2,000 physician assistants and hundreds of other health professionals. The only dually designated Historically Black Graduate Institution and Hispanic Serving Health Professions School in the U.S., CDU is recognized as a leader in translational and health inequities research, specifically with respect to heart disease, diabetes, cancer, mental health, and HIV/AIDS. The university is among the top 7 percent of National Institutes of Health-funded institutions and rated one of the top 50 private universities in research in the U.S. Recently, the CDU/UCLA medical program was named the "best performer" in the University of California System with respect to producing outstanding underrepresented minority physicians. For more information, visit http://www.cdrewu.edu.

About the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences: The Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences is the first independent computer science school within the UC system and one of the fastest-growing programs of its kind in the nation. Elevated from department to school status in December 2002, information and computer sciences at UCI is an academic community of more than 1,500 students, more than 100 full-time faculty and staff, and approximately 6,500 alumni worldwide. With experts in areas ranging from embedded computer systems and networking to bioinformatics and the social impacts of computing, the school ranks 15th among all public university computer science graduate programs, according to U.S. News & World Report.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UCI is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County's largest employer, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.9 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.

News Radio: UCI maintains on campus an ISDN line for conducting interviews with its faculty and experts. The use of this line is available for a fee to radio news programs/stations who wish to interview UCI faculty and experts. Use of the ISDN line is subject to availability and approval by the university.

Contact:
Sherry L.K. Main
949-824-1562
sherry@uci.edu

Elia B. Esparza
323-563-5822
eliaesparza@cdrew.edu

UCI maintains an online directory of faculty available as experts to the media. To access, visit www.today.uci.edu/experts. For UCI breaking news, visit www.zotwire.uci.edu.

Additional Project HealthDesign Grantee Teams

Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

It is often hard to detect subtle changes in everyday activities – such as the loss of the ability to make a sandwich, dial a phone, or take medications correctly – that could indicate the onset of dementia or physical decline in adults who live alone. Carnegie Mellon University will develop and evaluate new technology that will monitor the routine of older individuals who have arthritis and are at risk for cognitive decline, providing trustworthy data for long-term functional assessment and treatment. The technology will monitor routine tasks such as taking medication, movement around the home and cooking. It will then present the information to key stakeholders including participants, caregivers and clinicians, so that they can detect and better understand the individual's changing cognitive and physical abilities. By identifying decline at an early stage, caregivers will have a chance to halt or even reverse deterioration that might otherwise result in an unsafe living situation and ultimately require the person to be institutionalized.

RTI International and Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia

Asthma is a common, chronic illness, affecting over 23 million adults in this country. In addition to respiratory symptoms associated with the disease, individuals with asthma are also more likely to experience depression and anxiety. RTI International and Virginia Commonwealth University will design a personal health record application, BreathEasy, building on the latest clinical guidelines for treatment and self-monitoring for patients with asthma and depression. Patients will interact with the application through smartphone mobile devices and biomonitors to capture and report observations of daily living (ODLs) such as use of controller and rescue medications, symptom levels, quality of life and smoking. Clinicians will utilize a Web-based dashboard providing simple analysis and visualization tools that allow them to quickly view their patients' data, evaluate their health status and communicate any changes in treatment or monitoring. By providing a clearer picture of their health in everyday life, the ODLs will be used by both the patients and their clinicians to make lifestyle and treatment adjustments that will better manage their asthma and depression.

San Francisco State University
San Francisco, California

Youth from low-income backgrounds suffer disproportionately high rates of obesity. San Francisco State University will examine the potential of collecting observations of daily living (ODLs) via smartphones for low-income teens that are simultaneously managing obesity and depression. The project will utilize smartphone technology – wildly popular among young people – to make monitoring ODLs such as physical activity, food intake and mood easier and more convenient, thus making it more likely that they will enter the requested data at the appropriate times. In addition, the technology will allow the teens to easily share the data with their care team in order to help set health goals, track their progress and ultimately improve their physical and mental health.

University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California

There are 600,000 people in the United States who suffer from the digestive disorder Crohn's disease. The disease is most prevalent in young adults ages 18 to 35 and can not only be complicated and expensive to treat but also has significant social and emotional implications. The University of California, Berkeley in partnership with The Healthy Communities Foundation and the University of California, San Francisco will help young adults who suffer from the disease create visual narratives of their condition and treatment to provide concrete feedback to providers about how they feel from day to day. The project will include patients tracking observations of daily living (ODLs) such as physical symptoms like diarrhea, bleeding and profound weight loss, along with more complex social and emotional observations. The information will then be shared with the provider and discussed during their clinical appointments to help the patient and clinician get a more accurate picture of what's happening between appointments with the goal of being able to reduce exacerbation of symptoms and undesired consequences of treatment, ultimately increasing the quality of the patient's life and care.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Photo available at http://today.uci.edu/news/2010/03/nr_RDFAutism_100304.php


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