Inside CHIME: Nearly 370 Innovators Register for National Patient ID Challenge

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Weinstock 70x70 8.18.16 by Matthew Weinstock
Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME

CHIME’s national efforts to find a solution ensuring accurate patient identification attracts innovators from across the globe and gains traction on Capitol Hill.

It’s been a busy summer on the national patient ID front. First and foremost, we recently closed registration for the CHIME Healthcare Innovation Trust’s National Patient ID Challenge. Close to 370 innovators from 40 countries registered for the Final Innovation Round. That’s a tremendous showing and a clear indication that there’s a huge appetite for solving this important patient safety problem.

As a refresher, CHIME, in partnership with HeroX, launched the challenge earlier this year with the goal of finding a solution that will ensure accurate patient identification 100 percent of the time. It’s important to note that the challenge is focused on patient identification, not patient matching. The latter is a significant issue as well, but there are other industry initiatives underway seeking to improve matching algorithms.

With so much interest in the patient ID challenge, CHIME and HeroX staff are reevaluating the overall timeline for naming the winning solution and awarding the $1 million grand prize. Innovators entering the Final Innovation Round are not only required to describe how their solution will address nearly 40 use case scenarios, but must also build prototypes that demonstrate the functionality and performance of their design concept. With the potential of 369 innovators positioned to submit solutions, we are anticipating a heavy load. By way of comparison, the earlier Concept Blitz Round drew 113 submissions.

This is a big and complex problem and we want to get it right. Additionally, during the Concept Blitz Round, we learned that evaluating and judging the submissions is a daunting process.

We will continue to keep you apprised of developments with the challenge, but you can also check in on the HeroX website, and follow it on Twitter at #NPIDChallenge.

On a slightly different front, it is worth noting that CHIME’s continued advocacy on this issue is bearing some fruit on Capitol Hill. Before adjourning for the summer, the House Appropriations Committee gave its clearest signal yet that the lack of a national strategy on patient ID and matching are among “the most significant” barriers to information exchange. Although the committee carried forward a decades-old ban prohibiting the Department of Health and Human Services from promulgating a rule on patient identification, the committee, in a report accompanying the appropriations bill, specified that HHS should not be limited from providing technical assistance to private-sector initiatives aimed at promoting “patient safety by accurately identifying patients to their health information.”

 

More Inside CHIME Volume 1, No. 24: