The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is inviting innovators and entrepreneurs  to participate in a series of projects, including one that aims to accelerate health information exchange (HIE) by developing new tools that can reduce HIE implementation effort and cost.

The HIE accelerator project is part of the HHSentrepreneurs Program, which connects innovators and entrepreneurs with teams of federal employees working on projects that aim to address some of the biggest challenges in healthcare. The latest invitation is the second iteration of HHSentrepreneurs. Last year’s projects included electronic tracking and transport of the nation’s organ transplant system and building health resilience technology to withstand natural disasters.

“By bringing the best in the public and private sectors together, HHSentrepreneurs is creating an environment in HHS that fosters innovative solutions to new and old challenges,” Deputy Secretary Bill Corr said in a statement.

Deputy Secretary Bill Corr announced today that the Department is seeking innovators and entrepreneurs to apply for the HHSentrepreneurs Program.  Launched last year, HHSentrepreneurs connects private sector innovators and entrepreneurs with teams of federal employees working on projects that address some of the biggest challenges in health, health care and human services.

Along with the HIE accelerator project, HHS will place six to eight external entrepreneurs in projects that leverage predictive analytics to generate predictive risk models to proactively manage grants across the government, build a public-facing Geographic Information Systems map application that displays medical malpractice data, and re-engineer its publications planning and clearance process to take digital and social media into account.

Applications are being accepted until Aug. 16 and can visit here for more information.