Semifinalists Named in Social Determinant Innovation Challenge

Five semifinalists have been named in an innovation challenge designed to spur creativity in the social determinants of health (SDOH) technology environment.

For the SDoH Challenge, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and digital health innovation company Catalyst asked participants to develop novel digital solutions that can help providers and/or patients connect to health services related to SDoH. More than 110 applications were submitted to the SDoH Challenge. Here are the five semifinalists chosen by a panel of subject matter experts, venture capitalists and designers:

• Community Resource Network: The Social Determinants of Health Client Profile, a part of the Colorado-based Community Resource Network, creates a whole-person picture across physical, behavioral, and social domains to expedite help for those most at risk, fill in the gaps in care, and optimize well-being.

• Open City Labs: A company that matches patients with community services and government benefits that address SDoH seamlessly. The platform will integrate with HIEs to automate referral, eligibility screening & benefits enrollment.

• Project Well:  A company that personalizes food and social dining interventions to address food insecurity, social isolation, and strained household budgets for health plan members with chronic disease.

• Smart Community Health: A team from the University of Minnesota with a full-service community resource recommendation system that uses PRISM mobile app technology integrated with MyStrengths+MyHealth to provide personalized community resources.

• Social Impact AI Lab New York: A consortium of nonprofit social services agencies and technology providers with artificial intelligence solutions to address social disconnection in child welfare.

For a separate Home and Community Based Care Challenge, applicants were asked to create technologies that support the advancement of at-home or community-based health care. Here are the five semi-finalists:

• CareTree: A company with “HIPAA-compliant Facebook” that guides families to manage a loved one’s care.

• Epharmix: A company that scales remote patient monitoring for 24 conditions using accessible SMS & IVR to collect real-time patient health data. Provider alerts enable proactive care for patients worsening.

• Heal: Heal doctor house calls paired with Heal Hub remote patient monitoring and telemedicine offer a complete connected care solution for patients with chronic conditions.

• Ooney: PrehabPal, a home-based web-app for older adults, delivers individualized prehabilitation to accelerate postoperative functional recovery and return to independence after surgery.

• WizeView: A company that uses artificial intelligence to automate and organize information collected during home visits, supporting the management of medically complex populations at the lowest cost per encounter.

The semi-finalists for the challenges will be awarded $5,000 each to further develop their application or tool. After a second application round, three finalists from each Challenge will be chosen to compete at a live pitch event during the Health 2.0 Conference (Sept.16-18). Judges will select the first-, second-, and third-place winners live after a series of short demos from the finalists. The winners will be awarded $40,000 for first place, $25,000 for second place, and $10,000 for third place.