Newsroom

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital has selected the winners of the InnovateNYP Open Challenge, a ten-week competition in which both the public and NewYork-Presbyterian employees submitted ideas to enhance patient care and provider communication. More than 200 participants registered for the challenge, forming 31 teams which each proposed a solution, and selected finalists were invited to present their solutions to the judging panel of healthcare influencers on Demo Day.

Winning team from InnovateNYP Open Challenge

The judges included: from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Robert Kelly, president; Aurelia Boyer, chief information officer; and Dr. Peter Fleischut, associate chief innovation officer; Dr. David Vawdrey, assistant professor of clinical biomedical informatics, Columbia University Medical Center; Peter Neupert, lead director at Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp; Dr. Brad Weinberg, co-founder, Blueprint Health; and Dr. Indu Subaiya, CEO of Health 2.0.

The submissions were evaluated on the ease of use, design, benefit for users, creativity, innovation and overall quality. Proposals were intended for one of two categories: patient engagement, which included patient experience personalization, patient education, and patient entertainment, and care provider communication solutions, which included collaboration dashboard, patient document grouping and patient care tracking tools.

Results

• First place ($15,000 prize): Application Name: MedChat; Combining two basic mobile and web applications – text messaging and information search – MedChat is a mobile application that facilitates care team communication and collaboration, patient clinical information search and exchange, and care team alerting. Communication is facilitated through a chat room that contains only the members of a patient’s care team. Team members were Ryan DeCosmo of Wood-Ridge, New Jersey; Mengqi Jin of Great Neck, New York; Marc Sturm of Brooklyn, New York; and Eric Schmitz of New Providence, New Jersey.

• Second place ($7,500 prize): Application Name: Mocabell; Short for ‘Your Mobile Call Bell’, Mocabell provides a fast and alternative way for patients to communicate directly with the nursing staff. Using either a smartphone or tablet, patients can send self-directed messages to their nurses’ desktop or mobile device, while a ‘team player’ function allows others nurses to step in when needed. Team members were Hanson Hsu, MD and Uikyun Kim, both from New York, New York and Myunggen Yu of Woodside, New York.

• Third place ($2,500 prize): Application Name: Curbsided; Built off the NewYork-Presbyterian communication application NYPConnect, Curbsided is a mobile application that allows physicians and other providers to consult specialist physicians in the hospital. By improving access to specialists, Curbsided improves the speed and reliability of consult services. Team members included James Horowitz, MD, Tim Dybvig and two additional colleagues.

In total, InnovateNYP awarded $25,000 in cash and prizes. All submissions can be viewed at http://innovatenyp-challenge2015.devpost.com/submissions

“The other judges and I were incredibly impressed by the range of smart and creative solutions we reviewed,” said Aurelia Boyer, senior vice president and chief information officer, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. “We strongly believe that bringing outside perspectives together through this type of challenge helps drive innovation in healthcare IT. This contest has again offered us some fantastic ideas that can be translated into real-life solutions.”

NewYork-Presbyterian will now work with the winning teams to further refine their ideas and ensure each is feasible within the hospital. As NewYork-Presbyterian continues to focus on enhancing the patient experience, these teams will be new collaborators in utilizing technology to solve problems and streamline processes within the hospital.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, based in New York City, is one of the nation’s largest and most comprehensive hospitals and a leading provider of inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine. With some 2,600 beds and more than 6,700 affiliated physicians and almost 22,000 employees, NewYork-Presbyterian had more than 2 million visits in 2014, including some 14,000 infant deliveries and more than 262,000 emergency department visits. NewYork-Presbyterian comprises six campuses: NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/Westchester Division and NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital. The hospital is also closely affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian/Hudson Valley Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/Lawrence Hospital and NewYork-Presbyterian/Queens. NewYork-Presbyterian is the #1 hospital in the New York metropolitan area, according to U.S. News & World Report, and consistently named to the magazine’s Honor Roll of best hospitals in the nation. Affiliated with two world-renowned medical schools, Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, NewYork-Presbyterian is committed to excellence in patient care, research, education and community service.