The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announces the availability of $2.45 million in grants to study the effectiveness of patient-provider Web portals. “Web portals hold promise for enhancing communication between patients and their providers, containing costs, reducing medical errors and enhancing efficiency, but presently little is known about the effect of portals on patient outcomes,” said Dr. David K. Ahern, Ph.D., National Program Director for the Health e-Technologies Initiative. “Consequently, we see both the opportunity and obligation to stimulate and support systematic research on portals, with a particular focus on functionalities which support health behavior change and chronic disease management.”
The Health e-Technologies Initiative was created to provide the evidence base and knowledge required to build better eHealth programs. A resource and communications center that features tools and materials to help translate research into practice, a collaboration community and information on the program, including its current grantees can be found at www.hetinitiative.org.
To view the full Call for Proposals and to learn more about the key functionalities of interest and selection criteria, visit www.hetinitiative.org. Here you can also access the Request for Information (RFI) that is required of all applicants and pre-register for an informational teleconference that will take place on April 2. The deadline to submit the RFI is April 12.
The release can be found at:
http://www.rwjf.org/news/releaseDetail.jsp?id=1077658751632&contentGroup=rwjfrelease