HHS announces finalists in Crowds Care 4 Cancer Challenge today at Health DataPalooza IV, the first challenge for post-treatment cancer care.
There is a significant need for innovative tools to help survivors manage their transition from specialty care to primary care with more than 14 million plus annual cancer survivors. Today, three finalists were announced at HDI IV: Health DataPalooza by Abdul Shaikh, Program Director, National Cancer Institute in the first challenge focused on uncovering new tools to help cancer patients better manage their transition from oncology specialty care to primary care. Each team was awarded $5,000 by the Office for the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).
The top three finalists proposing innovative solutions for cancer survivors include:
1. Medable – Together, by Medable, enables Cancer Survivors to lead, optimize, and manage healthcare over their lifetimes. Together was created by a team including Survivors, physicians, and leading developers and designers using the Medable HIPAA-compliant platform. Our goal was to create a tool that would serve as a life companion for Cancer Survivors by providing a platform for patient-centered team based care, care-planning, data accessibility and sharing, with a toolkit for health management and monitoring.
2. JourneyForward – An innovative and interconnected suite of tools and resources to support survivorship care planning. The program designed for healthcare professionals and their patients who have recently completed active treatment for cancer. This program was created by a unique collaboration of organizations with a common goal of improving survivorship care. Journey Forward promotes and facilitates the use of Survivorship Care Plans that give clear steps for care after active treatment. See more at: http://www.medstartr.com/projects/189-journey-together-my-care-plan-module#sthash.V6vIYQeC.dpuf
3. PatientsWithPower– A web based software application is currently tailored to help women who are newly diagnosed with breast cancer. It captures their diagnoses, presents personalized treatment options based on the country’s most well-respected, evidence-based guidelines, and shows a timeline of their treatment and how it will impact their lives. See more at: http://www.medstartr.com/projects/191-patientswithpower#sthash.PlYKSw5M.dpuf
“Crowds Care for Cancer is an excellent example of the administration’s efforts to foster open innovation. It enables us to spotlight areas of health-related technology where there’s an opportunity for new insights and approaches,” said Adam Wong, Management and Program Analyst for the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC).
Today, the second phase of the challenge begins. All three projects have been posted on MedStartr, the healthcare crowdfunding portal, where they will vie for support and seek public feedback to optimize their application proposals. Medable, JourneyForward and PatientsWithPower will develop working prototypes of their application to submit before the final deadline of July 12. These entries will be reviewed by a diverse, expert judging panel (http://www.health2con.com/
More information on these innovative teams can be found at www.MedStartr.com/CrowdsCare.
With the support of the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, ONC launched the “Crowds Care for Cancer: Supporting Survivors” challenge in April as part of ONC’s Investing in Innovation (i2) program. The i2 program, managed by Health 2.0, utilizes prizes and challenges to facilitate innovation and obtain solutions to intractable health IT problems. The review panel will make selections based upon the following criteria:
- The submission is an innovative information management tool or application deployable on any personal computing platform widely available to consumers;
- The tool or application addresses the needs of cancer survivors managing their transition from specialty to primary care;
- Usability and design;
- Evidence of co-design with, and support from users of proposed tool or application (e.g., patients, families, primary/specialty caregivers, insurers, and/or hospital systems);
- Innovation and differentiation from existing technologies and products;
- Functionality, accuracy, integration with electronic care platforms, and use of Blue Button+ standards (bluebuttonplus.org) and other sources of health-related information; and,
- Customizability and ability to adapt to evolving survivorship care needs including primary/specialist care interactions.
For additional details on the “Crowds Care for Cancer: Supporting Survivors” challenge, visit http://www.health2con.com/
