athenahealth issues new innovation challenge
athenahealth is expanding its More Disruption Please (MDP) effort with two challenges.
The MDP Innovation Challenge is a virtual hackathon dedicated to developing solutions for the hospital space that will take place online starting Jan. 5 at mdpchallenge.devpost.com. Final submissions are due on April 1.
The cloud EHR vendor also will hold a pitch event and fireside chat during JP Morgan’s Healthcare Conference, co-hosted with StartUp Health and featuring Bill Draper, one of the west coast’s first venture capitalists and author of The Startup Game.
athenahealth challenges entrepreneurs, developers, health care professionals and innovators to build cloud-based solutions that solve hospitals’ biggest pain points.
“Hospitals, from the smallest critical access facilities to leading academic medical centers, are starved for disruptive, nimble technologies that can improve care quality, maximize provider efficiency, and reduce costs,” said Jonathan Bush, athenahealth CEO, in a release. “For this challenge, we welcome anyone with a novel approach to fixing what’s broken—big or small, radical or simple. The future of health care depends on entrepreneurs overcoming the industry’s notoriously high barriers to entry. That’s why we built the More Disruption Please program—to inspire a new generation of apps and services that will challenge and revolutionize the way providers and hospitals work.”
Winners of the innovation challenge will be announced online on April 12. The individual or team behind the best innovation will receive $10,000 in cash, a round-trip flight to Boston to meet with athenahealth executives and the potential for partnership and/or investment via the MDP program. Cash prizes also will be awarded to the runner-up, honorable mentions and a crowd-sourced People’s Choice finalist. To learn more about the most pressing pain points facing hospitals today, read Jonathan Bush’s blog here.
The company's MDP initiative aims to accelerate high-value innovation through services that help providers thrive in the face of industry change and pressure.
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Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.