Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) Director Dr. LaMar Hasbrouck recently announced the winners of the Illinois Public Health Datapalooza App Challenge. The challenge was designed to highlight the availability and benefit of having open (readily accessible) health data from government agencies. Teams built apps or maps that provided the best use of health data in solving a problem faced by health care communities in Illinois. The challenge was announced at the first statewide Illinois Public Health Datapalooza held in November 2013, an event that brought together experts from technology and health care sectors to show how health data can be put to work in Illinois and other states.
For first place, IDPH, the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) awarded $10,000 for the HealthNear.Me app, a simple tool to help residents find public health providers near them. HealthNear.Me compiled a list of nine types of health providers and made them searchable via a website built to work on smart phones, phones that can send and receive text messages, tablets and desktop computers.
For second place, IDPH, DCEO and RWJF awarded $5,000 to the creators of the
Illinois Teen Pregnancy and STI Hot Spot Detector map app.
The map helps health care practitioners and administrators determine where sexually transmitted infections and teen pregnancies are most prevalent in Illinois. Each map has also been outfitted with location markers where county residents can go for low cost or free treatment for sexually transmitted infections.
To learn more about the first statewide Illinois Public Health Datapalooza, held in conjunction with the first in a series of regional forums sponsored by the Health Data Consortium focused on “Putting Health Data to Work in Our States and Communities,” visit http://www.smartchicagocollaborative.org/making-public-health-data-work-in-illinois/. You can also visit the Statewide Open Data Portal, www.data.illinois.gov, to find health datasets and other government data that is readily available.
