Two Innovation Challenge winners announced

Two Innovation Challenge winners announced

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 12, 2012

Contact: HHS Press Office (202) 690-6343

Two Innovation Challenge winners announced

New tools to help patients better manage and access information in their electronic health records (EHRs) have been selected as challenge winners by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during the Health 2.0 Sixth Annual Fall Conference in San Francisco.
“Once patients and caregivers are able to download the tools designed by the EHR Accessibility Module and Blue Button Mash Up challenge winners and connect them to their own electronic health records, they will have more tools to better manage their health care,’’ said Farzad Mostashari, M.D. Sc.D., national coordinator for health information technology.   When fully realized, Blue Button will serve as a single tool that patients and others can use to create their own personal health record.  The EHR accessibility module will make it easier for people with disabilities access their electronic health records.
The Blue Button Mash Up Challenge, launched on June 5, 2012, builds on a prior Blue Button challenge to make personal health information more usable and meaningful for the individual consumer or patient. Solvers were required to mash up Blue Button data – personal health data a patient can download using a health plan’s, doctor’s, or hospital’s Blue Button function – with other open health data and information to achieve the goals of the three-part aim of the Innovation Center in HHS’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
The three-part aim consists of better care for individuals, better health for populations, and reduced costs through continuous improvement. The combination of Blue Button data with open health data from sources such as HealthData.gov and the National Library of Medicine will help patients make their personal health information and take action to improve their health.
The winner, iBlueButton, submitted by Humetrix of San Diego, Calif., is a dual-app system that provides an intuitive, patient-centered, secure two-way mobile solution, where patients can connect to their Blue Button and other health records. iBlueButton includes features such as patient-optimized and physician-optimized displays and dashboards, medication look-up, and new tools to download or print health information.
Humetrix was awarded $45,000. The second place team, Intelligent Decisions, received $20,000 while Get Real Consulting finished in third place and received $10,000.
The EHR Accessibility Module Challenge, launched on Jan. 30, 2012, asked solvers to create and test a module or application that makes it easy for people with disabilities to access and interact with the health data stored in their EHRs. Successful submissions would be able to download data from EHR systems, be simple to learn and use, and comply with standards for people with disabilities.
The winning team, Pinaxis, created Apollo, a fully accessible Internet portal that will allow patients to interact with any provider’s existing EHR system over the Web. Apollo’s patient portal is designed to enhance the user experience for patients.
The Pinaxis team, Luke Peterson, Anthony Veach, and Jared Schwartz, was awarded $60,000, and the two runner-up teams, RegisterPatient and Remedy Systems, each received $5,000.
The challenges are part of ONC's Investing in Innovation program which utilizes prizes and challenges to facilitate innovation and obtain solutions to intractable health IT problems. A list of winning ONC’s winning challenges can be found here.  Aligned with the administration’s innovation agenda, i2 is the first federal program to operate under the authority of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, signed into law by President Obama on Jan. 4, 2011. For details, see http://www.health2challenge.org/category/onc/.