Henry Ford Health System and Ford Motor Company are co-sponsoring an innovation challenge for employees to develop concepts that combine automobiles and wearables as a means to manage or improve health conditions.
The companies, both based in Detroit, are offering $10,000 in prize money to employees who come up with ideas linking healthcare apps to vehicles to expand the boundaries of patient monitoring. They are seeking concepts that use emerging wearable, mobile and Web technologies and envision new in-vehicle use-cases of the data recorded by these devices.
Such ideas could include in-vehicle health monitoring and warnings, ordering medical tests and accessing records from the road, appointment check-ins, prescription pick-ups and data collection that can be transmitted to a clinician. The underlying idea is that the car and the technology are functioning together while the driver stays focused on driving.
"We're looking for ways to use technology to do things as simple as increasing convenience for the health consumer and improving the driver experience, to as significant as saving lives," said Ward Detwiler, associate director of Henry Ford Health System Innovations. "There is a clear need to extend patient care beyond the doctor's office or hospital visit, both to improve patient wellness and lower overall healthcare costs."
Submissions open Jan. 20.
For more information, click here.
More articles on health IT:
7 of the most colorful quotes from IT leaders in 2015
9 hospitals, health systems seeking Cerner, Epic talent
Vanderbilt University Medical Center to switch to Epic EHR from McKesson