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Health 2.0 and ONC Announce the Winner of the Reporting Device Adverse Events Challenge

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — (Marketwire) — 06/07/12 — Today, Health 2.0 and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) are announcing the winner of the Investing in Innovation initiative-s (i2) . The i2 initiative utilizes prizes and challenges to facilitate innovation and obtain solutions to intractable health IT problems. Aligned with the Obama administration-s , it is the first federal program to operate under the authority of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act.

The Challenge — which launched on September 12, 2011 — called attention to adverse events related to medical devices. With the spread of electronic health records, medical devices will continue to play increasing roles in monitoring and collecting patient data. As patients play larger roles in managing their health, the devices that are used in hospitals, clinics and homes must become easier to use and monitor. The United States has a limited system for the post-market surveillance of medical devices, specifically as relating to monitoring product safety and effectiveness. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) operates the Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database, which catalogs reports of adverse events involving medical devices used in a variety of settings.

In order to improve the post-market surveillance of medical devices, it is important to innovate beyond the MAUDE database. ONC identified a need for a system that increased the rate of reporting of adverse events, improved the quality of the reported data, collected and analyzed information on providers using devices and patients receiving the devices and makes the data more dynamic and continuous to identify trends in real-time. The Reporting Device Adverse Events Challenge tasked teams with creating applications to meet these needs.

“This was one of our most technically difficult i2 Challenges. We commend the participating teams for their efforts and encourage them to continue to work on their products after the Challenge,” said Wil Yu, Special Assistant for Innovations at ONC.

As the winner, Team IOSTREAM will receive $25,000 in prizes. A brief summary of the winning application follows:

IOSTREAM — submitted by Doug Brown — the MedDAERS system by IOSTREAM is a web-portal for health professionals and consumers to voluntarily report the adverse events, product problems and product use errors associated with medical devices. Submitted reports are converted into electronic versions of the MedWatch 3500 form. The website has two entry points — the first is for users who wish to fill out and submit voluntary reports, the second is those with login credentials and is used to view the XML formatted voluntary reports that have been submitted.

To learn more about the , visit the Challenge-s website ().

ONC is the principal Federal entity charged with coordination of nationwide efforts to implement and use the most advanced health information technology and the electronic exchange of health information. The position of National Coordinator was created in 2004, through an Executive Order and legislatively mandated in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) of 2009. For more information, see .

The Investing in Innovation (i2) program utilizes prizes and challenges to facilitate innovation and obtain solutions to intractable health IT problems. Aligned with the Administration-s innovation agenda, i2 is the first federal program to operate under the authority of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. For details see

The conference. The media network. The innovation community. The Health 2.0 Conference is the leading showcase of cutting-edge innovation transforming the health care system. Since its beginning in 2007, Health 2.0 has served as a community resource for search and online tools to help consumers manage their health and connect to providers. Now that the industry has caught up, Health 2.0 covers the entire cloud, web, mobile and unplatforms technology revolution that is shaking up every sector of health care. For more, visit

Jodi Amendola
Amendola Communications for Health 2.0
480-664-8412 ext. 11