X Prize for healthcare?

Oct 15, 2008

The X Prize Foundation, which has previously created contests around private manned spaceflight and sending a robot to the moon announced a prize for fixing healthcare today (via Jay Drayer). From a moonshot perspective, this is likely to be the most difficult to date…even for them to create relevant metrics from which to judge the winner.

Contest details will be worked out by early next year. But essentially the competition will look for ways to “dramatically improve” cost and quality, said Brad Fluegel, a WellPoint executive vice president.

WellPoint and X Prize officials note that U.S. health care spending is projected to reach $4.2 trillion by 2016, or 20 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Such spending in other developed countries makes up 11 percent of the GDP or less.

The contest organizers are thinking big picture. Fluegel said they will look for a system of solutions instead of one or two improvements.

Potential solutions might involve ways to streamline insurance reimbursement or the medical claims process that reduce administrative costs. They also might include solutions that help patients better manage chronic conditions like diabetes.

WellPoint will then test the finalist ideas in its state markets. A prize will be awarded only if the solutions prove effective.

Unlike contests in the engineering world, social systems like healthcare have rulesets and goals that are largely undecided and unmeasurable. So where you can define clear targets to show progress for feats of physical engineering, as a nation we have not decided what our targets are for our social systems like healthcare (for instance, what’s the right balance between improving chronic care medication vs. finding new cures?)

I’ll be very interested to see if the contest organizers are able to put together a clear and end-goal with objective and relevant metrics within boundaries that aren’t self-serving for contest sponsor Wellpoint.