Robert Wood Johnson opens up healthcare quality challenge

The submission period for entries for the first phase of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) Challenge ends Dec. 31. AF4Q, developed by the Princeton, N.J.–based public health philanthropic organization, is an effort to assist the quality of healthcare in targeted communities as well as reduce racial and ethnic disparities and provide models for national reform.

The goals of the challenge are to develop an application that helps patients access better healthcare using publicly available inpatient and outpatient measures of healthcare quality from the AF4Q program.

“The application should walk patients through the decision making process for accessing inpatient and outpatient health resources,” RWJF stated. “Data from the challenge will come from AF4Q program sites and may include measures related to diabetes outcomes, antibiotic use, cancer screening, child healthcare, prevention and others.”

Teams must register for the challenge to gain access to the available datasets. There are no additional forms or steps required after submission of the registration form. Instructions on how to submit an entry will be sent prior to the close of the submission deadline. Teams are not bound or limited by the proposal description submitted in the registration form and may update or modify their projects as needed prior to final submission, the organization added.

For more information, click here. The winner will be announced in June 2012.

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