Innovations Help Patients Share Their Lives with Health Care Providers

The California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF), Mad*Pow and Health 2.0 today announced the winners of the “Putting Care In Context” design challenge which sought innovative ways to help patients take an active role in sharing information about hurdles in their lives that impact health.

The three winning solutions each empower patients to share information about issues like hunger, poor housing conditions, stress, and isolation with their health care providers. The winners are:

• First place: Healthify is a web-based platform used to assess patients’ social and behavioral health needs, refer patients to appropriate resources to meet those needs, and engage patients around their social determinants via interactive texting. The platform also provides dashboards for managed care plans and case managers to use, allowing them to better manage the social needs in their population and to efficiently search for social services.

• Second place: Share4Care is a design prototype of an iPad app that would allow patients to document stress levels and issues in their life while in a clinical waiting room. The Share4Care app would then calculate a “Life Change Score” and assign a color (green, yellow, or red) that would be immediately available to the patient’s physician, prompting them to ask about factors that could impact the patient’s health.

• Third place: MyDay Media Messaging Journal is a web-based platform that patients use to document their barriers to health through photos and text messages. The MyDay website and mobile app allow providers to view patients’ journal entries and follow-up to build patient-provider rapport, clarify journal entry content, and connect patients with resources.

The creators of these ideas will share $10,000 in prize money for their thoughtful, original work.

“We believe that healthcare providers must understand the hurdles in a patient’s life that can be a barrier to good health,” says Amy Cueva, Founder and Chief Experience Officer at Mad*Pow. “These winning concepts can help engage patients to share this important personal information, leading to more effective care.”

The challenge was first announced at the HxRefactored conference on May 14, 2014 in Brooklyn, NY. A healthcare experience, design and technology conference, HxRefactored fused the technical and creative elements of Mad*Pow’s Healthcare Experience Design Conference and Health 2.0’s Health: Refactored.

“The winning solutions – all at varying stages of development – demonstrate different ways that patients can be engaged to share information about their lives outside the clinic walls” said Giovanna Giuliani, senior program officer with the California HealthCare Foundation. “From a one-time assessment in the waiting room, to a daily social media-inspired approach, to a more developed web-based screening tool, these solutions will spark new ways to think about promoting conversations and care that addresses the whole person.”

For more information on the design challenge and the winning entries, visit http://bit.ly/CareInContext.

About the California HealthCare Foundation

The California HealthCare Foundation works as a catalyst to fulfill the promise of better health care for all Californians, supporting ideas and innovations that improve quality, increase efficiency, and lower the costs of care. For more information, visit www.chcf.org.

About Mad*Pow

Mad*Pow is a design agency that improves the experiences people have with technology, organizations and each other. Using human-centered design, Mad*Pow creates strong multi-channel experience strategies, intuitive digital experiences and streamlined processes for its clients. The company has offices in Boston, Portsmouth, NH and Louisville. For more information, visit www.madpow.com.

About Health 2.0

Health 2.0 promotes, showcases, and catalyzes new technologies in health care through a worldwide series of conferences, code-a-thons, prize challenges, and leading market intelligence. Visit www.health2con.com for more info.