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RWJF Launches Hospital Pricing App Challenge

 |  By smace@healthleadersmedia.com  
   June 05, 2013

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has launched a competition to develop applications and tools that will enhance and improve the way data comparing hospital prices is used.


How much hospitals charge for the same procedures (source: The New York Times)

The federal government's unprecedented release of hospital pricing data for inpatient and outpatient procedures with the last month comes with one overriding question: How will the information be used?

To find out, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has launched a competition among technology developers to improve consumer understanding and use of data that compare hospital prices. Winners of the RWJF Hospital Price Transparency Challenge will share $120,000 in prize money.

The challenge was announced at the Datapalooza IV, in Washington Monday.

Last month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published prices charged by more than 3,000 hospitals for the 100 most common inpatient procedures. The information showed extreme variation in pricing among U.S. hospitals—even those operating in the same communities. Experts say it underscores the urgent need for transparency in the health care system.

The RWJF Hospital Price Transparency Challenge is designed to further disseminate the use of the CMS hospital data. The competition consists of two components—one for creating data visualizations and the other for developing consumer applications and tools.

The visualization challenge requires entrants to create graphic representations to help consumers and others better understand, explore, and interpret the information. RWJF encourages applicants to incorporate other data in combination with hospital pricing data to enhance its value.

The apps and tools developed should help improve understanding of the hospital pricing information and promote further transparency about prices.

Winners of the visualization component of the challenge will be announced at the Health 2.0 Fall Conference in October 2013. The deadline for submissions is August 25. The app and tools component of competition will take place in two phases. The first phase will select five semi-finalists, who will be announced at the Health 2.0 Fall Conference. The deadline for this first phase is August 4. The second phase will see judges select winning entries from among the semi-finalists. Winners will be announced on December 9 at the mHealth Summit.


See Also: Heritage Health Prize Awards $500K


Also at Datapalooza, the HHS Office of the National Coordinator released data from the Regional Extension Centers about the different brands of EHR products used by 146,000 doctors by state, specialty, and each doctor's stage in meaningful use attestation.

Scott Mace is the former senior technology editor for HealthLeaders Media. He is now the senior editor, custom content at H3.Group.

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