On July 30, Ochsner Health System, GE Healthcare and The Idea Village launched the “Wear Your Health” challenge that seeks to identify wearable technology concepts and mobile application solutions that can transform healthcare outcomes by addressing behavior management in patients with chronic disease. Chronic diseases account for 7 out of every 10 deaths in the U.S. Totaling more than 80 percent of total healthcare costs, the existing U.S. care delivery model is poorly constructed to help manage this issue. The “Wear Your Health” challenge is part of the multi-year initiative Ochsner, GE Healthcare, and The Idea Village launched in March 2015 to address the healthcare and lifestyle issues affecting a large part of the U.S. population.
Challenge Details
The challenge seeks to engage entrepreneurs and innovators across the U.S. –with a special focus on the local New Orleans entrepreneurial community – to think about the best ways to address the evolving needs of healthcare, encourage lifestyle modifications, and help impact individual health.
It will be offer two distinct phases:
– Phase 1 of the challenge, which kicks off today, will identify up to 10 winners for a cumulative prize pool of $10,000 USD. The winners of Phase 1 will then be eligible to participate in
– Phase 2, where 3 finalists will receive additional development funding from a discretionary prize pool of $15,000 USD.
Submission Guidelines
Solutions should be proposals for apps and/or wearable devices, or ideas that could be implemented through apps and/or wearable devices. Solutions should be focused on healthy lifestyle issues that may contribute to a more informed, proactive patient and provider experience (i.e., wearables device tracking behaviors and bio-indicators, transmitting via connect home devices, etc.), not on clinical outcomes or patient comfort (i.e. better food, cable TV). Improvement in the chronic condition may occur by adhering to recommended medication, to changes needed in an individual’s lifestyle that may be contributing to the disease condition or by becoming more actively engaged in their own care.
The overall winner will be announced at New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, March 11-18, 2016. Information about the challenge and how to apply can be found at http://www.innovationochsner.com/challenges.
