Final health IT innovators win funding for cancer treatment apps

Innovative winners of an HHS public data and cancer challenge have created health IT applications that use public data and existing technology to help patients and health care professionals prevent, detect, diagnose and treat cancer. The two winners presented their submissions during a special symposium today at the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences and were each awarded $20,000 by the Office for the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).  The two winning applications include:

• Ask Dory! – submitted by Chintan Patel, Ph.D.; Sharib Khan, M.D., M.A., M.P.H.; and Aamir Hussain of Applied Informatics LLC – helps patients find information about clinical trials for cancer and other diseases, integrating data from www.ClinicalTrials.gov and making use of an entropy-based, decision-tree algorithm.  A functional demonstration of the application is available at http://Dory.trialx.com .
• My Cancer Genome – submitted by Mia Levy, Ph.D., M.D., of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center – provides therapeutic options based on the individual patient’s tumor gene mutations, making use of the NCI’s physician data query clinical trial registry data set and information on genes being evaluated in therapeutic clinical trials.  The app is in operation at www.MyCancerGenome.org .

Information on the four semifinalist teams can be found at http://go.USA.gov/5DA.

With the support of the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, ONC launched the “Using Public Data for Cancer Prevention and Control: From Innovation to Impact” challenge this summer in support of ONC’s Investing in Innovation (i2) program. The i2 program utilizes prizes and challenges to facilitate innovation and obtain solutions to intractable health IT problems.  Aligned with the Obama administration’s innovation agenda, i2 is the first federal program to operate under the authority of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act.

“What makes these health IT challenges so powerful is their ability to catalyze the expertise and creativity of innovators both in and out of health care,” said Wil Yu, ONC’s special assistant for innovations.  “We seek breakthrough solutions to nuanced issues; some are ready for the marketplace and some are prototypes, but all will have a great potential to benefit Americans.  Ask Dory and My Cancer Genome are examples of results that innovation challenges can incentivize and deliver – we’re really excited to see their impact.”

For additional details on the “Using Public Data for Cancer Prevention and Control” challenge, visit www.Health2Challenge.org/using-public-data-for-cancer-prevention-and-control-from-innovation-to-impact-2 .

For additional information about ONC or on the Investing in Innovation (i2) program, visit http://www.HealthIT.gov.