The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) and Blue Health Intelligence® (BHI) has announced the launch of the BlueCross BlueShield Data Innovation Challenge to develop solutions that increase access to care, enhance patient engagement, and improve care delivery and outcomes. BCBSA and BHI are collaborating with HIMSS and Healthbox, a HIMSS Innovation company, to implement the BlueCross BlueShield Data Innovation Challenge.
BlueCross BlueShield Data Innovation Challenge Overview
To advance their proposed solution, the winner of the challenge will have six months access to a limited dataset within BHI’s database of more than 5 billion covered procedures performed annually, originating from more than 170 million active and inactive Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) members.
Use Cases
Interested companies can choose from three categories to submit their proposals that will use BHI’s national data:
1. Identifying, predicting and prioritizing of members and providers for real-time intervention – To foster better quality and more efficient care, we must be able to identify and predict members who are likely to need care and can be helped by engaging early and in a focused manner. This requires new algorithms and identification techniques involving:
A. Machine learning
B. Integration of different data sources (EHR, social data, financial data, genomic data for example)
C. New approaches to real-time data (ADT data, Utilization alerts, etc.) integration into analytics
D. New approaches to pattern recognition in datasets.
2. Using data to reduce barriers of care – Barriers to care are real and varied. Often the best most efficient care cannot be achieved only because patients can’t manage the context of their lives or the delivery system is not flexible enough to allow them to include the time and ability to get the right care at the right time. Those barriers include:
A. Social barriers
B. Emotional and behavioral barriers
C. Access barriers, including geographical barriers (rural areas for example)
D. Cultural and language barriers
E. Complexity barriers (our system is extremely complex and that limits available of health care)
F. Other barriers including such items as loneliness, isolation, competing priorities, etc.
3. Enhancing the member’s journey through their health care usage – In some ways, the objectives of analytics and patient care are opposites. Analytics is the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data and the process of applying those patterns toward effective decision making. Patient care is often the discovery of intervention into low probability but high consequence events. How does one use analytics to impact the individual’s journey through health care, including:
A. Optimal decision making by the patient and the caregiver
B. Proper transitions from one caregiver to another and from one site to another
C. Proper management and decision making of chronicity and secondary prevention (avoiding relapses and recurrences)
D. Proper lifestyle management to the individual
E. Other factors that impact the individual patient journey.
Application and Testing Process
To apply, applicants must provide a company and team overview, a proposed solution for a selected category, expected outcomes and impact, scalability requirements, and references. Interested companies can submit their proposals now through June 25, 2019. Following submissions, the applications with the most potential to leverage BHI’s dataset to address one of the categories will be provided access to a limited HIPAA-compliant relevant dataset and other BHI resources to test its hypothesis.
Challenge Prize
Based on their preliminary results, the winner will then be chosen in the fall of 2019 and will receive access to a limited dataset within BHI’s database of more than 5 billion covered procedures, and support and advice from BHI for six months.
The winning company will also receive mentorship and advice from BCBS companies’ and leaders of the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
To enter the challenge, visit http://databox.healthbox.com/apply/submission-portals/39.
