HHS Announces Finalists In Move Health Data Forward Challenge

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Phase 2 winners move on to develop electronic solutions to help consumers share PHI securely.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has announced CedarBridge Group, EMR Direct, Foxhall Wythe, Live and Leave Well, and Lush Group will progress to the third and final phase of the Move Health Data Forward Challenge. The finalists were selected from a group of 10 participants that had progressed from phase one based on their ability to demonstrate viable solutions to challenges related to the flow of health information.

In the final phase of the competition, participants will be challenged with creating mobile or web-based applications to implement the health information sharing solutions they presented in phase 2.

In Phase 1 of the Move Health Data Forward Challenge, applicants submitted plans for developing solutions to aid in exchanging health information. Each of the 10 Phase 1 winners were awarded $5,000 and the right to move on to Phase 2 in which participants had to demonstrate a viable solution to achieve the goals stated in Phase 1 via the safe and secure exchange of health records. The five Phase 2 winners each receive a $20,000 award and advance to the final Phase of competition. The winners were:

• CedarBridge Group LLC, with the CareApprove app that allows patients to grant and revoke permission for providers to access, send, or receive health information electronically.
• EMR Direct, for the HealthToGo solution which facilitates the deployment of applications that can leverage multiple data sources in a consumer mediated health data exchange, reducing the number of identities to maintain and grant data to store.
• Foxhall Wythe LLC, for the Docket secure system that allows users to use a HIPAA-compliant process to store and share data with healthcare professionals, eliminating the need for paper-based intake processes.
• Live and Leave Well, LLC, for the Live and Leave Well solution that provides a consumer mediated exchange of end of life plans and creates a transportable package of data about that plan that can be scored and shared with multiple systems.
• Lush Group, Inc., for the HealthyMePHR system, which empowers patients through control over sharing and authorizing access to their electronic health records.

Phase 3 will select up to two winners, who will receive $50,000 based on their ability to implement their solution through the development of a mobile or web-based application.