CMS NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 31, 2019

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CMS Announces Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge Participants Advancing to Stage 1

The Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (CMS) announced today the top 25 participants selected to advance to Stage 1 of the CMS Artificial Intelligence (AI) Health Outcomes Challenge. A key step in implementing President Trump’s Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence, the CMS AI Health Outcomes Challenge will accelerate development of AI solutions that aid clinicians in predicting health outcomes and keeping patients healthy.

“Artificial Intelligence is a vehicle that can help drive our system to value – proven to reduce out-of-pocket costs and improve quality. It holds the potential to revolutionize healthcare: imagine a doctor being able to predict health outcomes – such as a hospital admission – and to intervene before an illness strikes,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “The participants in our AI Challenge demonstrate that such possibilities will soon be within reach. We congratulate the 25 innovators who have been selected to continue, and we look forward to seeing what else they have in store.”

The CMS AI Health Outcomes Challenge engages with innovators from all sectors – not just from healthcare. The Challenge aims to develop AI-driven predictions for healthcare providers and clinicians, including those participating in CMS Innovation Center models. More than 300 entities submitted proposed AI solutions to the CMS AI Health Outcomes Challenge.

Based on established criteria, a group of technical evaluators comprised of data science experts, healthcare data specialists, and clinical care providers evaluated the applications, after which a CMS selection panel chose 25 participants to advance to Stage 1 of the Challenge. From these 25 participants, up to seven will move on as finalists to Stage 2, be awarded $60,000 each, and receive an opportunity to further refine their algorithms and solutions using additional CMS data sets. CMS will announce the Stage 2 Finalists next year. At the conclusion of the Challenge, a grand prize winner will receive $1 million, and the runner-up will receive $230,000.

The CMS AI Health Outcomes Challenge was launched in March 2019 by the CMS Innovation Center in collaboration with the American Academy of Family Physicians and Arnold Ventures.

More information on the CMS AI Health Outcomes Challenge, including a list of selected Stage 1 participants, is available at: go.cms.gov/AI. Selected participants have until 5:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, November 6, 2019 to confirm their participation in Stage 1 of the Challenge.