Washington Debrief: Sebelius Responds to GOP Senators on HITECH Criticism

Nearly $1.5M Set Aside to Tackle Healthcare Data Challenges in National Contest A Washington-based policy think tank, a California-based provider network and a global research, technology, and consulting firm announced a series of “challenge” or “prize” contests this week.  The Bipartisan Policy Center, Heritage Provider Network and The Advisory Board Company announced the Care Transformation Prize Series, a national contest meant to address “difficult data challenges,” facing providers as they implement delivery system and payment reforms.  The briefing held in Washington was meant to kickoff the effort and encourage healthcare providers to submit their most difficult data challenges.  To incentivize participation the three organizations will offer at least three quarterly prizes of $100,000 to teams that develop the best solutions for the selected challenges.  The winning algorithms then will be made available to health care organizations and the public.  “Over the next two years, this contest will inspire innovative solutions for health care organizations as they learn how to leverage large data, particularly clinical data sets, for reform efforts,” said HPN President and CEO Richard Merkin, M.D.

In related news, HHS has launched a new challenge contest, called “Apps4TotsHealth Challenge,” through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and the Health Resources and Services Administration.  The Apps4TotsHealth Challenge is a call for developers, researchers, and other innovators to make use of the Healthdata.gov data API and integrate the TXT4Tots message library into a new or existing platform.  Around $25,000 is available for winning selections.

StateNet Webinar:  How the CommonWell Health Alliance Hopes to Manage Patient Identification and Consent The CommonWell Health Alliance was announced at HIMSS13.  It is an independent not-for-profit trade association created by Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth and Greenway Medical Technologies.  During the webinar, attendees will learn about CommonWell’s approach to patient data-matching, consent policy and more.  According to their website, they say, “We plan to promote and certify a national infrastructure with common standards and policies and will ensure that products that display the CommonWell Health Alliance seal have been certified to work on the national infrastructure.”

This presentation is open to ALL Health IT Stakeholders, click here to register!