ONC launches app challenge to aid people with disabilities

The Office of the National Coordinator has announced a new innovation challenge – this one aimed at improving access to medical records for people with disabilities.

Health information technology and electronic health records hold great promise in improving the health outcomes and coordination of care for people with disabilities, ONC officials wrote in a recent background paper. However, the accessibility and usability of HIT is a matter of serious concern to people of diverse disabilities, including those who have vision, hearing, intellectual, manual dexterity, mental health, developmental and other types of disabilities.

To find a solution, the ONC has launched a mobile app contest. It challenges multidisciplinary teams to create and test a module or application that makes it easy for disabled consumers to access and interact with the health data stored in their EHRs,

According to ONC officials in a press release, the app should:

• be easy for individuals with disabilities to consume and interact with their health data;
• be simple to install and learn;
• identify and link to relevant local or online communities and organizations;
• be able to download data from one or more EHR systems (it doesn't need to be fully integrated across all systems); and
• leverage and extend NwHIN standards and services including, but not limited to, transport (Direct, Web services), content (Transitions of Care, CCD/CCR) and standardized vocabularies.

The deadline for submissions is July 23. The winner will receive a $60,000 prize and an opportunity to demonstrate the technology at a future conference. Other prizes of varying ranges will be awarded to other top competitors.