FAQs

A health standards and data innovation Code-A-Thon soliciting projects that uses one or more of the required tools and services to address one of the following obstacles in health IT:

1. Electronic Quality Measures and/or decision support
2. Secure and privacy preserving methods to aggregate patient data
3. Discovery of patients, providers, researchers and/or  services

The event requires the use of several open tools and services created under the ONC/PCOR Patient Matching and Algorithm (PMAL) Project. The projects developed at the code-a-thon will uncover underlying gaps and will challenge teams to develop and present concepts that support specific obstacles in Health IT. The code-A-Thon also  Fulfills the goals of the innovations area of ONC’s Tech lab for coordination and engagement with start-up communities, the administration of challenge contests, and monitors standards and technology innovations on the horizon.

Interested parties who do not wish to be part of the Code-a-thon contest may participate as an “observer” and attend the educational “Office Hours” sessions.

The competition will begin at 8am on April 24, 2017 and will end at 12:30pm April 25, 2017 . The event will take place at 1776 Crystal city, 2231 Crystal Dr #1000, Arlington, VA 22202.

The challenge website is the best source of information for this challenge and will be updated frequently.

The Code-a-thon awards are not grants.  It is a prize competition run under the authority of the America COMPETES Act, which enables ONC to invest in innovation through research and development.  Challenges are a way for HHS employees to draw on external talent and ideas to solve critical problems.

Coders, developers, industry experts, academia.

Teams should be made up of 2-5 participants. Teams may not be set in advance. Informal formation of teams is encouraged however; team formation will be finalized at the event.

1. Based on number of registrants, we will ask that you consider taking on additional team members if needed.
2. ALL individuals in a team must meet the eligibility requirements and comply with the Code-a-thon Code of Conduct.

Submissions are due no later than 7:00 am on Tuesday, May 25 via the Challenge site and posted to GitHub.

The total prize money for this Challenge is $15,000. Cash prizes will be awarded as follows:

• (3) Third place winners will receive $1,000 ea;
• (2) Second Place winners will receive $2,000 ea;
• (1) First prize winner will receive $ 5,000.

There will be up to (6) honorable mention awardees that will receive $500 ea.

Winners will be announced on April 25^th at the close of the event

The scope of this Code-A-Thon is limited to solutions developed on one or more of the required tools and/or services that address one of the 3 identified tracks.

Privacy and Security

• Security Profiles
  • HEART Profiles
• OAUTH, OpenID Connect and User Manage Access (UMA) services and libraries
• POET
  • Pre OAuth Entity Trust (POET) API
  • Pre OAuth Entity Trust Reference Implementation (POET-RI)

Data and Matching Services

• eCQM server
• Records completeness service
• Patient matching harness
• Patient merging

Projects can be started in advance as long as they have been posted to the public domain for others potential use.