How can design affect health and the delivery of care? Last year I and a group of Pioneer's guests interested in Project ECHO went to Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation Transform Symposium without knowing much about the conference's focus of design and innovation in health. I entered as a skeptic but left a believer. This year, Pioneer brought no guests but we did provide funding so that a number of students in the design, pre-medical, and medical professions could attend.

What do I mean by design? You might think that design doesn’t have a place in delivering innovative health care. Design is predicated on understanding the way people and the environment react to how solutions are packaged and presented. This is critical in the acceptance and ultimate success of health care solutions, and successful outcomes are an essential health care goal.

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?

Last month’s 12gurus: Health conference brought “resources and innovation to the forefront” by convening the world’s most accomplished leaders in health care and medicine to share new ideas that can improve the health care system. The conference focused on how to enable innovation through research, data-sharing, and mobile technology to pave the way for future breakthroughs in health care.

Three former and current Pioneer grantees attended the invitation-only conference in New York City and gave 18-minute-or-less “TED.com-style” talks:

• Scott Johnson, president and founder of the Myelin Repair Foundation, presented the session, “Breaking from the Past to Breakthrough to Cures-Accelerated Collaboration Model.” Learn more about Scott’s recent honor as the recipient of the prestigious Gordon and Llura Gund Leadership Award from Research!America.

• Jason Hwang, executive director of health care at Innosight Institute, presented the session, “Preparing for Impending Disruptive Changes: The Innovators Prescription.”  Read more about Jason’s Pioneer-funded research, "Disruptive Innovation in Integrated Care Delivery Systems."

• Lisa Schwartz and Steve Woloshin, of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, presented the session, “Ingredients of Simplicity: How to present data to patients in a way they’ll understand.” Learn more about their work creating Drug Facts Boxes and read Al Shar’s perspective on their research.  

HealthLeaders Media identified 20 individuals to tell their stories of how they are changing health care for the better in its annual HealthLeaders 20 issue. Two grantees of the Pioneer Portfolio are included in this prestigious honor.

Clayton Christensen is often referred to as the father of disruptive innovation, the concept that new technologies have the potential to turn an industry upside down—but they may be difficult for established organizations to adopt. In 2011, Christensen and his team at Innosight Institute published a Pioneer-funded case study series on disruptive innovations within integrated health systems. In the summary report, researchers investigated how the seven integrated health systems think, act and innovate differently.

Nicholas A. Christakis is a well-established name in the science of human connectivity and social networks. In 2011, Christakis’ innovative Pioneer-funded research looked into how humans interact and coordinate in response to the behavior of one’s social partners in an article published in Science and in this profile.

We’re proud to call these innovating movers and shakers part of the Pioneer family. They, like all of us, are working to make a difference in health care. We encourage you to congratulate Christensen and Christakis (through his book Connected) on Twitter.

It’s time for RWJF’s annual research poll! David C. Colby, vice president of Research and Evaluation, announced the 20 nominees for RWJF’s Most Influential Research Articles of 2011. We are honored that three Pioneer grantees made the list:

• Positive Health – Heart Health When Life is Satisfying: Evidence from the Whitehall II Cohort Study, published in May’s  European Heart Journal, found that satisfaction in four life domains—job, family life, sex life and self—were independently associated with a 12 percent reduced risk of total coronary heart disease. The research supports Positive Health, a new field of inquiry into whether there are assets that help people achieve and maintain good health and recover more quickly when they are sick. Vote for Article 12 or learn more about this project.
• Flu Prediction Market – The Use of Twitter to Track Levels of Disease Activity and Public Concern in the U.S. During the Influenza A H1N1 Pandemic, published in May’s PLoS ONE, followed researchers who used Twitter to effectively track public concerns about H1N1 and follow real-time disease activity. Tweets related to hygiene coincided with public health messages about the outbreak, and there was a distinct association between twitter data and the actual progression of H1N1. Vote for Article 11 and learn more about this project.
• Project ECHO – Outcomes of Treatment for Hepatitis C Virus Infection by Primary Care Providers, published in June’s New England Journal of Medicine, demonstrated that primary care providers can be trained via video communications technology to manage complex chronic conditions formerly outside their expertise, thus expanding their ability to bring better care to more people in their own communities. By putting the best available medical knowledge into the hands of everyday clinical practitioners, Project ECHO exponentially expands the capacity of the health care workforce to provide high-quality care in local communities. Vote for Article 17 or learn more about this project.

Vote for your top 5 Most Influential Research articles of 2011 now and use #Final_5 on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to follow the conversation and let others know which articles you think should make the top five for 2011. Voting ends on midnight of December 23 so act fast! This year’s winners will be announced in the next issue of Evidence Matters to be released in early 2012.