We are pleased to report that out of over 140 teams that applied to win our New Orleans Health Innovators Crowd Challenge, sponsored by BCBS Louisiana, Ochsner Health Systems, Stone Pigman, Tulane Health System, Lafayette General Foundation, Lookfar, Capital One, Launchpad, The Warehouse, The Shop, and the New Orleans Bioinnovation Center and organized by the New Orleans Business Alliance, we have our winners! Teams were selected by garnering the support of crowds of healthcare innovation enthusiasts, some raising hundreds of thousands of dollars, closing partnerships and pilots, and getting the support of patients and care providers that want to get and give better care with the innovations. Over 70,000 visitors to MedStartr helped decide who took the stage and then expert judges from leading healthcare companies helped decide who got first place. But the beauty of a crowd challenge is that there are many winners since getting a first customer or pilot is so critical to helping healthcare companies get out to market in healthcare and often hundreds of such relationships begin during a crowd challenge. Okay, so without further adieu….
(drum roll please…)
The Winners are:
The Diabetes Challenge: Sponsored by BCBS Louisana and Ochsner Health
1st Place: Alertgy: A Needle-free continuous Glucose Monitor
If blood sugar levels get out of control, diabetics can faint, and without emergency action, die. So Alertgy, based in Melbourne, Fla., developed a noninvasive real-time blood glucose monitor and alert system in which a diabetes patient wears a wristband with nonintrusive sensors. If blood sugars start to go too high or too low, the smartphone monitoring the wristband with wireless technology notifies the user. If the user ignores or is unable to respond, it will call the alert contacts that the user programs into his or her phone app. Get involved with this winner and learn more here.
Runners Up:
ULCER PREVENTION INSOLES: BONBOUTON
For patients with diabetes, ignorance of foot health status can be devastating medically, emotionally and financially. So Bonbouton has developed a wearable insole with a proprietary embedded graphene sensing system to passively monitor the skin’s physiological signals in a diabetic patient in order to detect early signs of foot ulcers. Bonbouton is a technology platform for preventative diabetic healthcare based in Long Island City, N.Y., led by founder & CEO Linh Le. Get involved with this winner and learn more here.
DIABETES SIMPLIFIED: DIASYST
DIASYST engages patients to collect critical information in real time, analyzes the data with proprietary algorithms and provides time appropriate medication intervention recommendations for a healthcare team to make effective, individualized and safe treatment decisions. DIASYST is a health IT company out of Emory University, Georgia Tech and the Atlanta VA Medical Center developing novel solutions to improve the management of common and costly diseases such as diabetes. Get involved with this winner and learn more here.
The Interoperability Blockchain Challenge: Sponsored by Lafayette General Foundation
Winner: Health Nexus: a healthcare-safe blockchain — The Health Nexus blockchain uses HIPAA-compliant validators to add an extra layer of security to power the protocol, thus creating a permissioned blockchain that meets expectations of healthcare. Get involved with this winner and learn more here.
The Navigator Challenge: Sponsored by Tulane Medical, a Columbia HCA Health System
Winner: NurseNow by MedSpace.io is a heterogeneous marketplace of medical services that can be explored by the patient, and work with the patient’s medical records to recommend the best services for him. Get involved with this winner and learn more here.
All the teams won at least one new pilot or partnership, funding, a package of startup services including legal help, development, workspace, and more in the challenge. All teams are under review for investment and acceleration by the MedStartr Venture fund which provides over $250,000 in cash and services to teams and accelerates them rapidly. We also are evaluating four of the other teams that did great in the contest, earning partnerships and funding worth over 2M.
Congrats to all and thank you to our partners and sponsors for making the #NOLAHI Crowd Challenge possible. To learn more about the NOLAHI Crowd Challenge please visit NOLAHI.com. To learn more about MedStartr Crowd Challenges please visit http://about.medstartr.com/challenges/.
