2 Winners Named For ONC's Blue Button App Challenges

A California-based developer of mobile technology tools and a Virginia-based provider of communications solutions for care providers have been named the winners of two Blue Button app competitions sponsored by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.

In announcements made this week at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco and on Twitter (hashtag #health2con), Humetrix, of Del Mar, Calif., won first place and $45,000 in the ONC's Blue Button Mash-Up challenge, and Kinergy Health of Vienna, Va., won the Patient Engagement Blue Button challenge and $25,000. The Advisory Board Company sponsored the competition.

Humetrix developed the iBlueButton, a mobile tool, to automatically access and download Medicare Blue Button text files on to a patient's device. It translates medical codes into English and displays the data in organized tables of problem and medications lists, past medical visits, tests and procedures.