CMS Launches Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge
- By BSTQ Staff
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has launched the Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge, a three-stage competition to accelerate artificial intelligence solutions that will potentially be used by CMS’s Innovation Center in testing innovative payment and service delivery models under the authority of section 1115A of the Social Security Act.
The 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. It also prioritizes explainable artificial intelligence solutions to help frontline clinicians understand and trust artificial intelligence-driven data feedback to target scarce resources and improve the quality of care. CMS is partnering with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to award up to $1.65 million to selected participants during the three stages of the challenge.
The three stages include the Launch Stage, during which participants will submit an application and provide information about their proposed solution. Up to 20 participants will be selected to advance to Stage 1. During Stage 1, participants will design and test their proposed solution using certain Medicare claims data sets. Up to five participants will be selected to advance to Stage 2, and each will be awarded up to $80,000. During Stage 2, finalists will be able to request additional Medicare claims data and refine their solutions. The grand prize winner in Stage 2 will be awarded up to $1 million, and the runner-up will be awarded up to $250,000.
The challenge will run for approximately one year. The Launch Stage ran from March 2019 through June 2019. Stage 1 will run from summer 2019 through fall 2019. And, Stage 2 will run from winter 2019 through spring 2020. The winner will be announced in April 2020. (Dates are subject to change.)
More information about the challenge can be found at ai.cms.gov.
References
CMS Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services press release, March 27, 2019. Accessed at www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/cms-artificialintelligence-health-outcomes-challenge.
