ONC Announces Digital Privacy Notice Challenge

Challenge Open Until April 7th

In September 2009 President Obama outlined and initiated his Strategy for American Innovation. He called on agencies to “increase their ability to promote innovation by using tools such as prizes and challenges to solve tough problems.” The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) then issued the guidelines on challenges, contests, and prizes in March of 2010. The guidelines provide a policy and legal framework to guide agencies in using prizes to advance their missions through innovation. Challenge.gov was created as a platform for agencies to list, track, and promote their challenges.

Digital Privacy Notice Challenge
Calling all designers, developers, and patient privacy experts to submit an entry for the Digital Privacy Notice challenge! This is your opportunity to create an online model notice of privacy practices for health care providers and health plans that is compelling, readable, and understandable by patients and is easily integrated into existing entity Web sites. The notice should creatively inform and educate the user on their rights and responsibilities regarding their medical information.

The announcement of requirements and registration was published in the Federal Register on February 10th. Submission period begins: February 7, 2014 and ends: April 7, 2014. Winners will be announced: Event TBD May-June, 2014. The Submission must:

  • Be coded in JavaScript for the interaction piece (as a JQuery plugin, Node.JS module, or standalone script) and HTML/CSS for the presentation layer.
  • Use the content developed jointly by ONC and OCR, available at HHS.gov. The formatting design elements of the paper notices were consumer-tested and should be looked to as a guide, but successful submissions will factor in the differences between reading and consuming content on paper versus online.
  • Allow organizations using it to customize the content, consistent with the options made available through the paper-based model.

Total prize money paid by the contractor will be $25,000.

  • First Place: $15,000
  • Second Place: $7,000
  • Third Place: $3,000

To learn more about this challenge, its requirments and reviewing details, visit the challenge site at ONC Challenges.