over 11 years ago
Answers to Questions About Preparing Your Entry
We received some questions the other day from a participant who wanted some guidance about the entry which they’re preparing. In fairness to all potential entrants, here’s the questions (some of which we’ve paraphrased) and our answers.
Q: Can the five page narrative description required by Section 5(b)(i) [of the rules] include graphics?
A: Yes, but the narrative -- including graphics -- can’t exceed five pages.
Q: Section 5(b)(ii) [of the rules] requires that you be able to download the application to determine whether it meets the requirements of the contest. Will a link to a training site suffice for this link or do you need one of the live sites to allow you access?
A: We need access to your Blue Button®-enabled application for several purposes. We must be able to experience the full functionality of the PHR as any end user would, across all use cases. Our particular interest is the patient experience, including the ability to enter, see, store and download their data. If your training site does this, great. If not, we’ll need access to a live site.
As section 5(b)(ii) states, we must have the ability to download the application itself if we need to specifically assess how easy it is to install, its usability across platforms, its privacy and security features or any other requirement of the competition. If you offer a training or other live site, access to a downloadable application can be done via a separate web address.
Q: Section 5(b)(iii) [of the rules] requires an Excel-compatible spreadsheet which lists the LCPs and LCP organizations which have installed the Blue Button-enabled PHR and made it available to their patients. Does this spreadsheet count as part of the 5 page limit in 5(b)(i)?
A: No. The Excel spreadsheet is in addition to the five page narrative.
Q: Must the Excel-compatible spreadsheet required by section 5(b)(iii) [of the rules] require just the name and contact information for a facility and the officers that signed off on the usage of the button, or do you need all of the provider names and contact information as well (this will be a lot of information for 25,000 providers.) Could we just list a facility or LCP organization, URL contact info etc. and then a column indicating the number of providers? Then make a separate listing that contains the LPC names for reference? We can get all of the contact info for all of the LPCs if I need to, but need to know if you want all of the info first before I embark on that much detail.
A: There’s some flexibility in how you demonstrate that the required number of providers are offering the PHR. If ten physicians practice through ABC Clinic, for example, and all 10 offer a PHR to their patients, you might choose to simply list ABC Clinic, its contact info (see the rules) and the number of providers. But if you do this, another section of the documentation must show (so we can verify) the names of the 10 physicians who practice through the Clinic.
We trust these answers help you prepare your own entry. And keep in mind that under the rules, the Contest prize goes to the first contestant to submit a winning entry.