The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and Catalyst @ Health 2.0 have named the finalists for two ongoing pitch competitions, one focused on the social determinants of health (SDOH) and the other on home and community-based care.
Each competition’s three finalists will be demoing their digital approaches for judges and audience members at next month’s Health 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara, with the first place winner of health Innovation Challenge taking home $40,000 to further advance their technologies.
Among the nearly 100 applications submitted for the Home and Community Based Care Challenge, the three chosen finalists are:
Heal, maker of an app for booking and processing physician house calls, as well as a newly launched virtual follow-up appointment offering;
Ooney, a company providing a web app that guides older adults through individualized surgery prehabilitation; and
Wizeview, which makes an artificial intelligence app that allows caregivers or other care providers to more easily collect and organize relevant information during a home visit.
From a pool of more than 110 applications, the three finalists of the SDOH Challenge are:
Community Resource Network, which develops an electronic profile of SDOH characteristics to help expedite care for those underserved by care;
Open City Labs, a digital health company that pairs patients with community services or government benefits while automating referrals and enrollment by integrating its platform with healthcare information exchanges; and
Social Impact AI Lab — New York, a group using AI tools to tackle social disconnection in child welfare.
These contestants will make their final pitches at 2:30 p.m. on September 16, with the first place winners featured on Health 2.0’s main stage the following day.
Last year’s RWJF and Catalyst innovation competitions were focused on AI tools for improving healthcare consumer decision making, and technology-enabled resources to combat opioid abuse. These competitions ultimately awarded Buoy Health’s chatbot for patient health education and Sober Grid’s addiction support platform with the top prize.
