ONC announces winners of consumer, provider app challenges

The HHS's Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has announced the winners in the Consumer Health Data Aggregator Challenge and the Provider User Experience Challenge.

These challenges pushed for the development of applications to improve interoperability and the secure transfer of data. The challenges required participants to use ONC-supported Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and open application programming interfaces (APIs) to make the sharing of information easy and effective.

The Consumer Health Data Aggregator Challenge, which aimed to improve the secure sharing of health data from different providers using different health IT systems, awarded PatientLink Enterprises first place and a $50,000 prize. Its MyLinks application used cloud technology to gather, manage and share patient information using FHIR and Direct messaging. Patients using the application can monitor data from their devices, participate in research and use interactive tools.

Second place and the “connector” prize of $25,000 was awarded to Green Circle Health. This application uses FHIR to import patient data to a platform of complete family health information. It also included personal data, medical device data, remote monitoring and reminders.

1upHealth, an app helping patients organize and share data from different platforms, was listed as an honorable mention.

The Provider User Experience Challenge, which focus on improving data accessibility through APIs to help providers take full advantage of EHRs and make clinical workflows more seamless, awarded first place and a $50,000 prize to Herald Health. Herald's app gives clinicians the ability to customize push notifications when managing alerts and information. These customizable notifications can be applied to patients nd groups and shared to other users.

The second place “connector” prize of $25,000 was awarded to a collaboration of University of Utah Health Care, Intermountain Healthcare and Duke Health. Their clinical decision support tool gives treatment reccomendsations based on liver waste products in the blood of pediatric jaundice cases.

PHRASE Health, shich prioritized alerts using clinical decision support, was listed as an honorable mention.

“We are thrilled to recognize new tools that make it easier for individuals and clinicians to access health information and put it to use,” said Vindell Washington, MD. “These apps reflect the incredible progress that is possible as a result of the digital health infrastructure that the public and private sector have built together over the last eight years.”