Judges for the Wall Street Journal 2010 Technology Innovation Awards have selected software from HHS as the most innovative technology in health IT this year, the Wall Street Journal reports.
HHS' CONNECT software is designed to assist health care providers in electronically exchanging medical records.
The Innovation Awards choose recipients for the awards in 17 different categories, including the health care industry.
Addressing Problems
According to the judges, the CONNECT software addresses two key "roadblocks" in adopting electronic health records:
- The cost of EHRs; and
- Patient privacy and security needs.
Developers created CONNECT to meet requirements for maintaining the security and privacy of medical records.
The Federal Health Architecture program -- which is tasked with organizing health IT efforts among federal agencies -- distributes the software at no cost to government and private health organizations.
Runners Up
Runners up in the health care IT category were:
- Ingenix, for its Disease Precursor Identification software, which identifies individuals at risk of developing costly diseases that are difficult to manage; and
- Life Image, which offers a platform for diagnostic image storing and sharing.
Other Winners
The Innovation Awards also recognized winners in the medical device and biotechnology fields (Totty, Wall Street Journal, 9/27).