Winners of HHS Design-a-thon to Develop Innovative Digital Health Tools for COVID-19 At-Anywhere Diagnostic Tests Announced

Sixteen winning designs (listed below) selected from the HHS COVID-19 At-Anywhere Diagnostics Design-a-thon aim to increase speed, quality, comprehensiveness, and utility of SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic test data. This effort will help maintain visibility and increase reporting accuracy on SARS-CoV-2 infection rates across the country. Another contest objective is to ensure that all SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tools can securely transmit test results to local and national public health authorities, as well as health care providers and patients, ensuring a timely public health response.

The COVID-19 At-Anywhere Diagnostics Design-a-thon, led by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), and the HHS Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), attracted 700 participants over a 10-day technology innovation sprint. Thirty-one teams submitted final capstone projects for judging. All submitted final capstone projects are publicly viewable here.

"The Design-a-thon harnessed the power of American ingenuity to ensure we have accurate, user-friendly reporting of COVID-19 testing results, especially those from rapid, easy to use tests," said Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Brett P. Giroir, MD. "The development of new technology for SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing greatly enhances our capabilities, but also introduces new challenges for the public health response. More FDA-authorized rapid diagnostics, such as point-of-care, over-the-counter, and at-home tests, are increasingly being utilized but often lack an easy way for users, such as schools, nursing homes, or businesses, to report results. This effort will address this gap."

Winners of the Design-a-thon will advance to a 6-week TOPx (The Opportunity Project) virtual tech sprint to expedite further development starting in January 2021. The culmination of TOPx is a public-facing "Demo Day," which will showcase many potential solutions and products from different organizations.

The ultimate result of both the Design-a-thon and TOPx technology sprints will be SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tests that have built-in, automated, harmonized data capture and wireless transmission capabilities. These capabilities will alleviate data collection and reporting burdens for patients, providers, anyone administering/using tests, labs through which data is routed – but perhaps most critically, these capabilities will be necessary for data capture and reporting when at-home, non-prescription, and over-the-counter tests are authorized and begin saturating the market. On Tuesday, December 15, 2020, FDA authorized an antigen test as the first over-the-counter fully at-home diagnostic test for COVID-19.

A live, interactive Q&A will be held with the Design-a-thon winners on Thursday, December 17 from 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm ET. This event is open to the public, and a meeting registration link is posted on the event's Crowdicity agenda tab.

Design-a-thon Winning Teams

GOLD

Oracle: COVID-19 Immutable Test Results Submission and Visualization

Design provides a front-end Web application and representational state transfer (REST) application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable submission of test results directly from mobile apps, test manufacturers, or administrator networks. Uses Oracle blockchain platform, analytics and cloud infrastructure as well as distributed ledger technology to enable real-time reporting of individual and batched results in a trackable manner with confidentiality, integrity of identity and data, and immutability. (Score: 33/35)

SILVER (tie)

Interpret-COVID: Consumer Dx Test App

The application disseminates FDA authorized COVID Dx test information to consumers & collects outcome data via blockchain for post-market analysis. The system will not collect or track personally identifiable data. Consumers are empowered to own, collect, track or share test results with their physician and provide anonymous feedback on test performance, clinical outcomes and other health determinants. (Score 30.5/35)

Oasys: One Country, One Data Standard, One Process for all

Smartphone Technology to make data entry by the patients, easy, fast, and accurate. Interfaces with Gov-Cloud and uses near Real-Time Data Streaming technology for instantaneous data refinery, enrichment, aggregation, and reporting. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in conjunction with a remote attendance capable of understanding speech and syntax provide patients in remote areas with the ability to also register over a landline. (Score: 30.5/35)

BRONZE

Net Medical Xpress Solutions, Inc: Net Medical's Telemed for COVID-19 Wireless Data

Treats COVID-19 test data capture as a Telemedicine consult problem: supports COVID-19 data collection and harmonization through questionnaires, order, and diagnostic forms. HL7 2.5.1 interface for export has been implemented and adopts standards like HTML5 and Web Bluetooth API. (Score: 30/35)

Honorable Mention

IBM: Digital Health Pass for Citizen Reported COVID-19 Testing Data

Blockchain-based tracking system to support decentralized secure verification of healthcare status claims and early signal detection. (Score: 29.5/35)

Safe Health Systems: Connected Diagnostics Platform

Self-collection and near real-time digital assessment of rapid diagnostic tests outside of the point of care. Operated in partnership with the Mayo Clinic. (Score: 29/35)

AIE Technology Solutions, Inc: Mareedi Wellness App

Secure, daily-pass wellness app with pulse/respiratory monitoring, contact tracing, CDC COVID questionnaire responses, & lab/home test results. (Score: 28.5/35)

NYU: Smart Diagnostics Ecosystem for COVID-19 Disease Management

Smartphone app and cloud-based interfaces between EHR for lab and non-lab reporting for use at healthcare provider/test site. (Score: 28/35)

UDoTest: Simple Patient Testing Solution That's Live, Integrated and Comprehensive

Business-to-business at-home disease testing software platform designed to improve access to all tests, data and reporting. (Score: 27.5/35)

Lifepoint Informatics: COVID-19 State Reporting Hub

Software and reporting hub that connects data from a laboratory, device, or application, normalizes results, and routes information in real-time to each state/federal organization (Score: 27/35)

VirusIQ: VirusIQ Screening Platform > Virtual Lab Module

Multimodal platform for infectious disease management that can potentially leverage a cellular chip, designed and prototyped, to capture, standardize and report data (Score: 27/35)

CURA Patient: CuraPatient Digital Platform

Schedules testing appointments, issue digital passports, and recommend follow-up testing as well as enables reporting and compliance checks. (Score: 26.5/35)

Dovel Technologies: Patient Health Surveillance Ecosystem Portal (PHSEP)

Implements Differential Privacy algorithms (preventing data leaks and re-identification of individuals) to allow interoperable data. (Score: 26.5/35)

DynamiCare Health & InfoWerks: At-Home Tele-Lab: From Epidemic to Pandemic

Allows administrators to invite users to the app, assign tests on a schedule or on-demand, audit videos, view test/survey results, generate reports. (Score: 26.5/35)

Skyflow: Privacy-First, Real-Time APIs for Collecting and Curating COVID-19 Data

Application programming interface (API) for COVID-19 data that can capture, harmonize and share health information while maintaining patient privacy. (Score: 26.5/35)

People's Choice Award

First Place Winner:

NYU: Smart Diagnostics Ecosystem for COVID-19 Disease Management

Project described above under Honorable Mention(Total Points: 557)

Runner-Up:

DLC-Delta: Co-Verify Solution

A cloud based blockchain backed-lab reporting solution that uses a secure, immutable multi-tier web and phone application for COVID-19 reporting and research. (Total Points: 505)

Everyone is welcomed and encouraged to visit the crowdsourcing website to view all of the submitted capstone projects and to join the HHS COVID-19 At-Anywhere Diagnostics Design-a-thon community!