Project HealthDesign: stimulating the next generation of personal health records

Project HealthDesign is a national program designed to rethink the power and potential of personal health to rethink the power and potential of personal health records. It intends to stimulate development of new personal health management tools by harnessing the content of the personal health record and making advice, recommendations, and data-tracking tools available to lay people. The program goals include creating a set of prototype personal health records applications, deriving the core functions needed to support interoperable 'plug-and-play' resources for managing health challenges, and addressing the ethical, legal, and social issues that confront the development of computer tools to promote health actions. Response to the call for proposals was tremendous; from the over 160 groups who submitted proposals, 9 teams were selected to design and create prototypes of innovative personal health management tools. This paper summarizes the full set of proposals, their populations of interest, and the technical challenges that await full implementation of the PHR-based applications designed to promote health.