WASHINGTON, Oct. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Advisory Board Company announced that Kinergy Health's MyKinergy cloud-hosted tool has won the Patient Engagement Blue Button Challenge and received the $25,000 grand prize.  The announcement was made at the Health 2.0 Fall Conference on Monday, October 8 in San Francisco. 

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The Advisory Board Company sponsored the Blue Button Challenge to spur innovation in encouraging patients to broadly enroll in and use Blue Button, a Web-based feature through which patients may easily and securely download their health information from doctors, insurers, pharmacies or other health-related service and share it with health care providers, and caregivers. 

"If hospitals and health systems improve their coordination of care with other providers by leveraging Blue Button data, then they may raise care quality and efficiency, lower readmissions, and improve patient engagement in areas such as compliance with prescription regimens," said David Chao, PhD, Chief Technology Officer, Crimson at The Advisory Board Company.  "Kinergy Health won our Challenge because it identified a highly effective driver of real-world patient use of personal health records: enabling the physician to convincingly articulate the value of Blue Button data to the patient."

"Kinergy outperformed our other high-quality finalists in its ability to engage patients and the medical staff, resulting in a level of trust that led providers to actively encourage patients to enroll," said Aneesh Chopra, Senior Advisor, Health Care Technology Strategy, The Advisory Board Company. 

"We are thrilled to have won the Challenge, particularly given how important the Blue Button initiative is in empowering patients with information so they can better manage their own care," said Gail Foster Embt, CEO and Founder of Kinergy Health.  "When used with a platform like Kinergy, Blue Button data becomes integrated with other patient information like history, test results, and medication lists, providing a more timely and accurate view of the patient that can be easily and securely shared with all of the patient's providers and caregivers." 

Each of the five finalists was paired with one of The Advisory Board Company's member institutions for a trial of their solution.  Kinergy was paired with Lynchburg Internal Medicine (LIM), a member of the Centra Medical Group. 

"The Lynchburg Internal Medicine physicians were excited about the usefulness of this data, especially for their population of veterans," said Terri M. Ripley, Director of Systems and Programming and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Coordinator for Centra.  "Physicians and staff agreed that if the patients' data were incorporated into the medical record it would be extremely useful in capturing a more complete problem, medication, and medication allergy list.  One of the patients who successfully registered and uploaded his Blue Button data to MyKinergy was heading off to receive treatment at another facility in another state.  This patient now has the ability to take his Centra electronic medical records with him, remain connected to his LIM doctor, and simplify the sharing of his information." 

A panel of judges evaluated entrants on three criteria: basic functionality and security; the ease of accessing, updating and sharing patient information for both patients and providers; and the ease of integrating this information into the clinical setting.  The five finalists each received a $5,000 cash prize:

• iBlueButton (R), submitted by Humetrix (R), San Diego;
• DonateData, submitted by TrialX, New York;
• FollowMyHealth(TM), submitted by Jardogs, LLC, Springfield, Ill.;
• MyKinergy, submitted by Kinergy Health, Vienna, Va.; and
• mHealthCoach(TM) Flornce(TM), submitted by mHealthCoach, Chicago.

A panel of five judges determined the finalists and winner:

• Mr. Chao;
• Mr. Chopra;
• John Halamka, MD, Chief Information Officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School;
• Jeffrey DiLisi, MD, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Virginia Hospital Center; and
• Halle Tecco, CEO of startup accelerator, Rock Health;

For more information on the Patient Engagement Blue Button Challenge, visit www.advisory.com/challenge. 

About Blue Button
Blue Button is a Web-based feature through which patients may easily and securely download their health information from doctors, insurers, pharmacies or other health-related service and share it with health care providers, and caregivers.  "Blue Button" is a registered Service Mark of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an agency of the United States Government and is used by permission. 

About Kinergy Health
For elderly and chronically ill individuals, Kinergy Health brings their family members, doctors, and professional caregivers together in a private, secure online community where they share and respond to up-to-date information, coordinate plans, and collaborate to assure that the patient is always receiving timely and appropriate care.  Today, over 66 million Americans manage the care of someone else.  Kinergy Health simplifies the role of family caregiver and improves efficiency and effectiveness for healthcare providers.  MyKinergy is a SaaS-based service allowing healthcare providers to rapidly deploy patient-centered care models.  For more information, visit http://www.kinergyhealth.com.

About Centra
Centra, a regional nonprofit health care system, was founded in December 1986 through the merger of Lynchburg General and Virginia Baptist Hospital.  Southside Community Hospital in Farmville joined in January 2006, as an affiliate.  Today, Centra includes over 6,000 employees, a medical staff  over 500, Centra Lynchburg General Hospital, Centra Virginia Baptist Hospital, Centra Southside Community Hospital, three health and rehabilitation centers, a regional cancer center, a regional cardiovascular center and physician practices serving an area from Bedford to Farmville and from Nelson County to Danville.  In addition, Centra's services include residential and outpatient mental health facilities, home health and hospice programs, mammography centers, a sleep disorders center and a center for wound care and hyperbaric medicine.  For more information, visit http://www.centrahealth.com.

About The Advisory Board Company
The Advisory Board Company is a global technology, research, and consulting firm partnering with 140,000 leaders in 3,700 organizations across health care and higher education.  More than 45% of all U.S. inpatient admissions now flow through the firm's health care technology platform.  Through its Crimson offerings, The Advisory Board Company collaborates with health care providers dedicated to strengthening hospital-physician alignment, coordination among care settings, and overall clinical performance.  Crimson currently supports more than 600 hospitals and health systems representing over 360,000 physicians.  For more information about The Advisory Board Company, visit http://www.advisory.com.

SOURCE The Advisory Board Company