The HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has announced the winners of its Patient Matching Algorithm Challenge.

The matching of patient data from one provider with data to similar patients in other systems could improve research into diseases and provide information on how other patients were treated. However, current patient matching methods lack the ability to accurately match patients to data records.

“Many experts across the healthcare system have long identified the ability to match patients efficiently, accurately, and to scale as a critical interoperability need for the nation’s growing health IT infrastructure. This challenge was an important step towards better understanding the current landscape,” said Don Rucker, MD, national coordinator for health information technology.

In this competition, the ONC choose winners from over 140 teams and 7,000 submissions. The winners were selected by which has the highest measure of accuracy, also taking into account precision and recall. The first place prize of $25,000 was awarded to Vynca followed by PICSURE and Information Softworks, who received $20,000 and $15,000, respectively.