The ONC named two winners of its health data provenance challenge March 13.
The agency launched the data challenge, titled "Oh, the Places Data Goes: Health Data Provenance," on April 6, 2017. The challenge invited participants to develop an IT solution to track "data provenance" for each update and exchange event.
Data provenance refers to information about the data, including when the data was created and by whom, along with whether it was altered during electronic exchange, according to an April 2017 ONC blog post. The goal is to identify errors and ensure quality.
The first phase of the project, which ONC selected winners for in July, asked participants to submit white papers describing their team's current capability to demonstrate provenance of health data, along with identifying any barriers they have faced. For the second phase, the selected teams developed prototypes and pilot solutions to address the problems they identified in phase one.
The final winners ONC selected were 1upHealth and Rain Live Oak Technology.
1upHealth developed a solution to help providers find aggregated data from various sources using the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources standards framework and smart contracts on a blockchain-based public ledger. Rain Live Oak Technology created a software toolkit to enable health information systems to integrate provenance into their data flow.
In its April announcement explaining the challenge, the ONC said the first place winner would receive $60,000, while the second place winner would receive $40,000.
"Ensuring provenance of data is an important step in achieving interoperability of health information," said Don Rucker, MD, national coordinator for health IT. "We look forward to seeing these winning submissions being implemented in electronic products that will allow for the secure, trustworthy and reliable exchange of health information."