RWJ Foundation gives $2.4M for patient observation studies, two in Bay Area

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has awarded more than $2.4 million to five research teams to study how "patient-recorded observations of daily living" can be captured and integrated into clinical care.

Three of the five teams are based in California, including two in the Bay Area: one at San Francisco State University and a second team made up of researchers at UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and The Healthy Communities Foundation. The foundation said new technologies, such as smartphones and sensors, make it possible to gather information - such as diet, exercise, sleep patterns, medication usage and pain - from the flow of people's lives. Through its national Project HealthDesign program, RWJF says it's funding five groups to find out how such data can be collected, interpreted and used in clinical settings. Each will receive a two-year $480,000 grant.