ONC Announces Heart Health Apps Winners

A web-based application that helps users create personal heart health profiles named THUMPr won the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) “One in a Million Hearts Challenge.” The winner was announced by Farzad Mostashari, M.D, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Conference in Chicago.

The challenge was part of the Obama administration’s, “Investing in Innovation” (i2) program, which uses prizes and challenges to further innovative health IT solutions that empower patients to pursue healthy lifestyles and improve their heart health. The i2 competition received funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. 

The award for the THUMPr team, which consists of developers Jared Schwartz, Luke Peterson, and Anthony Veach, is $50,000.  According to the developers, THUMPr generates unique recommendations based on the Million Hearts ABCS framework (Aspirin, Blood pressure, Cholesterol, Smoking cessation) and are paired with actionable steps for the user. The application features multilingual support and was developed using the Drupal framework and data sets from the American Heart Association, Mayo Clinic, Google Maps Database, and Facebook Connect Application Programming Interfaces.

Second place was an app called mHealthCoach, which 11 unique data feeds, supports social media integration, peer communities, and fitness groups. Third place went to app called Wellframe, which focuses on patient engagement, evidence-based information and resources, targeted and actionable information and ease of usability.