CMS is launching an Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge, an industry competition aimed at accelerating innovation in the healthcare analytics space.
“The Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge is an opportunity for innovators to demonstrate how artificial intelligence tools – such as deep learning and neural networks – can be used to predict unplanned hospital and skilled nursing facility admissions and adverse events,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma in a press release.
“For artificial intelligence to be successful in healthcare, it must not only enhance the predictive ability of illnesses and diseases, but also enable providers to focus more time with patients. The power of artificial intelligence will truly be unleashed when providers understand and trust the data and predictions.”
Hosted in partnership with the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the three-stage competition will encourage innovators from all industries and sectors of the data science world to develop solutions for predicting health outcomes.
CMS and its partners are expecting to award a total of up to $1.65 million to participants in the first and second stages of the program. One million of those dollars will go to the single grand prize winner at the end of the challenge.
CMS first floated the idea of the artificial intelligence challenge late last year, noting, “Leaders of the technology revolution—including tech companies, academic institutions, scientists, clinicians, and patients—are leveraging cutting-edge technology to redefine healthcare delivery. We want to join them in this work. The goal is to help the healthcare system deliver the right care, at the right time, in the right place, and by the right people. It’s not enough to build on the technology that currently exists. We need to ask bold questions, like how artificial intelligence can transform and disrupt how we think about healthcare delivery.”
According to CMS, the prospective AI solutions will be judged on their proposed impact, the originality of the innovation, and how the tool will enhance the collaboration between man and machine.
CMS may use winning entries as part of testing innovative payment and service delivery models, the agency said in a fact sheet accompanying the announcement.
“The Challenge prioritizes explainable artificial intelligence solutions to help front-line clinicians understand and trust artificial intelligence-driven data feedback to target scarce resources and improve the quality of care,” CMS explained.
Applications are due at 5:00 PM Eastern time on June 18, 2019. Entrants must submit an online application form and short slide deck providing information about the proposed solution.
CMS will announce the first batch of successful solutions by mid-July, 2019.