AMA awards $50,000 for healthcare technology innovation ideas

The creators of three healthcare innovation ideas were awarded a total of $50,000 by the American Medical Association June 13.

More than 100 teams of physicians and medical students competed in the AMA’s Healthier Nation Innovation Challenge, which launched in April. The participants were challenged to come up with new ways to use technology to advance care in the 21^st century.

The winners were chosen through online reviews and a presentation to three judges at MATTER, a healthcare innovation group in Chicago.

The first-place winners are a team from Boston led by YiDing Yu, MD. They will receive $25,000 for developing a mobile technology called "Twiage" that allows first responders to “share real-time patient data with hospitals to accelerate life-saving emergency care.” Their proposal explains that EMS and other emergency responders can send hospitals up-to-the-minute info on expected patient arrival times, vitals, demographic info and photos and videos.

The second-place team are set to win $15,000 for inventing a catheter that uses light to disinfect it while still in the patient’s body. The visible light phototherapy technology could help prevent hundreds of thousands of catheter-related infections, the developers said, saving time, money and lives. The team is based in Portland and led by Mitchell Barneck.

And the third-place winners developed a program called Ceeable, a mobile platform designed to diagnose eye diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration. The developers said the technology will be especially helpful in diagnosing patients who have limited access to healthcare. The team, based in New Jersey, will get $10,000 for their idea.

The AMA will also connect all three teams with healthcare innovation companies, business strategists and technology support to help develop their winning ideas.