Winners announced in NY patient portal design competition

The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) announced the winners of its Design Challenge for the Patient Portal for New Yorkers, awarding Mana Health first place, iHealthNY second and MyHealthProfile third.

For taking top honors, Mana Health will receive $15,000, while iHealthNY and MyHealthProfile will receive $7,500 and $2,500, respectively.

Video demonstrations of the three winning portal designs can be viewed here.

NYeC launched the design challenge earlier this year, asking developers to build a website to enable New Yorkers to access and share their medical records from their healthcare providers. Prototypes were submitted for voting by the general public in April, with the top nine teams invited to a pair of demo days where their products were assessed by a panel of expert judges.

As seen in the prototype videos and on the demo days, many of the developers incorporated features from the world of social media, including profile pictures, messaging and compatibility with third-party apps. Many of these prototype features will be included in the portal made available to the public.

Key features of the portal, according to NYeC, will be:

• Easy access to records whenever they are needed, including medication lists and recent test results;
• The ability to share records with providers, including sharing data from specialists with family doctors and getting a second opinion on a diagnosis;
• Patient control over who is allowed to have access to their medical history; and
• Tools to empower patients in their healthcare management and allow them to partner with doctors in their care.

NYeC will now begin building the portal and coordinate its function on top of the Statewide Health Information Network of New York. On May 15, a Request for Proposal will be released to identify a company to work with NYeC on development of the portal, which will be available to the public in 2014.