Winners of Health Data Platform Challenges

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s Health Data Platform (HDP) challenges were designed to create new functionalities for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ repository for open health data, HealthData.gov. The site is dedicated to making high value health data more accessible to entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers in the hopes of better health outcomes for all. Over the past month, judges have been evaluating challenge submissions and have selected the winners who will receive $70,000 in combined prizes.

THE METADATA CHALLENGE

The Metadata Challenge was launched on June 5, 2023 in order to facilitate the application of common metadata standards to all open government data. Additionally, the challenge sought to improve designs for health specific metadata. The challenge entries were judged on the number of metadata and data sets the app was designed to accommodate, the use of open source software and the incorporation of best practices.

For the HDP Metadata challenge, Tetherless World Constellation (TWC) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) won the $20,000 first place award with an application that leveraged the healthdata.gov CKAN API (Application Programming Interface) and the complete catalog of datasets on healthdata.gov to create multiple resources for organizing data and automating many of the data processes. TWC presented a set of in-house developed tools enabling the discovery of, access to, and integration of the Health and Human Services’ datasets as Linked Government Data.

NCBO and HealthLink were the runners-up in the Metadata challenge, winning $10,000 and $5,000, respectively.

THE SIMPLE SIGN ON CHALLENGE

The Simple Sign-On Challenge was launched on June 5, 2023 as a call to developers to improve community engagement by simplifying the authentication process across all HDP technology components. The challenge evaluated entries based on the app’s success in integrating components, design, documentation, and performance.

A team of Drupal contributors demonstrated the integration of the WebID protocol in Drupal as part of a healthdata.gov eco-system of interoperable web platforms, demonstrating how it is possible to leverage the WebID protocol in enterprise scenarios, showcasing an imaginary set of health related applications whose members are able to seamlessly register and sign on using a dedicated WebID provider.

OneLogin and SHIELD were the runners-up in the Simple Sign-On Challenge, winning $10,000 and $5,000, respectively.