mHealth News

McKesson Foundation awards $1.5M in mHealth research grants

The McKesson Foundation announced the winners of six research grants it has awarded as part of its Mobilizing for Health initiative. The grants include $1.5 million in funds in total and each of the awardees will receive $250,000 for their mobile phone-enabled research project centered on diabetes management. The projects that the Foundation awarded make use of a range of mobile technologies and services, from text messaging (SMS) to “comprehensive” software programs.
Last year we interviewed Carrie Varoquiers, president of the McKesson Foundation, to learn more about the Mobilizing for Health grants program:


“[The McKesson Foundation] had been funding diabetes management programs at these clinics, and we continue to do that, but we realized that with our limited budget we were only touching 150 or 200 people at each clinic,” Varoquiers said. “If we were to invest in research in mHealth that helps to answer some of the unanswered questions around mHealth, we could potentially affect millions of patients. We realized that there was a great opportunity for us to help build the evidence base for positive health outcomes. I think there is a lot of potential in mHealth to positively affect patients’ lives, in particular low income patients’ lives.”

The six recipients of the grants include:

Drs Joshua Cohen and Neal Sikka of George Washington University received one of the grants to study the use of SMS messaging to reduce emergency department visits for people with diabetes. We mentioned Sikka last year for his innovative use of mobile phone cameras in emergency rooms.

Another physician at George Washington University, Dr Samir Patel received a $250,000 grant from the foundation for a study called “Enhancing diabetes and hypertension self-management: A randomized trial of a mobile phone strategy.”

Dr Lawrence Cheskin of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health will use the funds to conduct a weight control-centered study called “Tailored Rapid Interactive Mobile Messaging (TRIMM) for weight control among the underserved.”

Kevin Clauson, Pharm.D., of Nova Southeastern University will use the research grant to conduct a pilot study that assesses the impact of SMS (text messages) on medication adherence for Type 2 diabetes patients.

David Lindeman, MSW, Ph.D., of the Public Health Institute will conduct a study called “Patient-centered mHealth: New horizons in diabetes care at Family Health Centers of San Diego.
Finally, Drs Sanjay Arora, Michael Menchine, and Anne Peters, at the University of Southern California will use the funds to conduct a study called “Improving diabetes care for low-income Latino patients in the Los Angeles County healthcare system.”


http://mobihealthnews.com/10273/mckesson-foundation-awards-1-5m-in-mhealth-research-grants/

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