Lawsuit Brought Against CHIME for their $1 Million Patient ID Challenge

Back in 2016, CHIME announced a $1 million Patient ID challenge.  CHIME teamed up with HeroX (which co-founded the XPRIZE) to run a year-long competition to develop a National Patient ID solution.  They planned to announce the $1 million winner in Feb 2017 at the CHIME-HIMSS CIO Forum.  Here’s the challenge description from the HeroX website:

Ensure 100% accuracy of every patient’s health info to reduce preventable medical errors and eliminate unnecessary hospital costs/resources.

For those of us that work in health IT, the challenge of patient identification and matching is a well known and complicated problem.  Plus, government regulations that don’t allow for a national patient ID or even any sort of research or discussion of a national patient identifier make it even more challenging.  Improving patient identification and matching is something we all want fixed.

After CHIME’s announcement of the Patient ID Challenge, they started with a Concept Blitz round that included 113 submissions and over 344 innovators registered for the challenge.  On June 1, 2016, 5 independent judges selected 23 proposals as semifinalists, 8 submissions were chosen as finalists, and two winners for the Concept Blitz Round: Michael Braithwaite and Mark Schroeder.

On the same day, they also announced the next phase of the contest, the Final Innovation Round, which was open to anyone (not just Concept Blitz participants) who had to register by July 12 and needed to submit their entry by November 10th.  This deadline was then pushed to January 15, 2017 before being pushed again to March 1, 2017.  Nearly 370 innovators from 40 countries were registered for this Final Round.

The deadline for announcing the finalists was then delayed to May 12, 2017 to make sure they could do their “due diligence and give them the detailed review they deserve.”  They also pointed out that those participating had to work through “44 use-case scenarios and answer detailed questions around enrollment and identification; security and fraud; management; privacy; scalability; adoptability and implementation.  They were also asked to provide details on intellectual property and come up with a prototype development plan.”  A lot of work for both those submitting and those judging.  However, they still planned to announce the winner in Early November after prototype submissions and multiple testing phases.

On May 15, 2017, CHIME announced the 4 Finalists that would be entering the Prototype Testing Round of the challenge:

  • Michael Braithwaite’s proposal achieves patient identification through the use of multiple biometric technologies.
  • Bon Sy’s proposed solution identifies patients by analyzing a combination of behavioral and biometric information.
  • Team HarmonIQ Health System’s proposed solution uses blockchain, public ledger, FHIR and encryption/hashing technologies to identify patients.
  • Team RightPatient’s innovation uses photos, biometric third-party and other data, to enable patient identification.

On Oct 16, 2017, they provided this challenge update:

Phase 1 testing for the CHIME Healthcare Innovation Trust National Patient ID Challenge was completed in early September.  Results of the testing have been compiled and are currently under review.

Then, on Nov 15, 2017, the CHIME Healthcare Innovation Trust that hosted the challenge with HeroX announced that after 2 years of work they had decided to suspend the Nation Patient ID Challenge. Russell Branzell, President and CEO of CHIME explained the suspension by saying, “Though we’ve made great progress and moved the industry forward in many ways through the Challenge, we ultimately did not achieve the results we sought to this complex problem. We decided the best course for addressing this patient safety hazard is to redirect our attention and resources to another strategy.”

One finalist, Personavera, LLC’s Michael Braithwaite, doesn’t think it was legal for CHIME to suspend the challenge and filed a civil lawsuit against CHIME, Healthcare Innovation Trust, Russell Branzell (CHIME’s President and CEO), and Keith Fraidenburg (CHIME’s Executive VP & COO) on February 13, 2018.

In the complaint (2:18-cv-00633-RBS Eastern District of PA), Personavera alleges 7 counts that include CHIME breached its contract, violated the Illinois consumer fraud and deceptive practices act, committed fraud, negligently misrepresented the challenge, violated the federal prizes and gift act, and has unlawfully kept the prototype submitted.  For each count, Personavera requested at least $150,000 in damages and return of its prototype.

CHIME filed 7 summary motions that were all denied on April 8, 2021.  Now they’re in the discovery phase of the lawsuit.

I reached out to CHIME about the lawsuit and they sent the following response:

CHIME denies that it did anything wrong in cancelling the challenge and is vigorously contesting Mr. Braithwaite’s claims and expects to prevail in the lawsuit.  Given that the lawsuit is currently pending, CHIME cannot comment further on the substance of the lawsuit.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

1 Comment

  • There’s a lot to unpack here. Not the least of which are ethics and accountability. If you’ll recall, the challenge itself had an ambitious goal to find that one patient identifier solution that can work on greater than 80% of the population. Given the complexity of this goal, it is no wonder that CHIMEs ultimately felt that all challenge participants failed to accomplish the task in all or part. That said, reality aside, I wonder if CHIMEs made known to participants; the problem must be solved, or no prize will be awarded. If this was disclosed, CHIMEs were well within their right to suspend the contest. However, if the goal was to design the “most scalable” solution, perhaps CHIMEs should pay out the prize. These competitions are common, with most developers coming into them with high hopes and a genuine desire to help solve complex healthcare issues. Organizations are wise to consider the integrity of their contest and act in good faith. But contest aside, participants also have to worry that sharing their intellectual property and research with organizations may result in their solutions being ripped off in all or part. Certainly, CHIME had possession of the solutions long enough to “replicate and launder” participants’ solutions. It could be years before the models, possibly ripped off, would make their way to market. While CHIMEs is a reputable organization, their behavior regarding the contest is “sus Further, what would it hurt to pay out the prize for the most scalable? Why would CHIME refuse to bring the contest a conclusion that recognizes participants’ works while admitting the issue of a national patient identifier still has a long way to go? And who’s running PR point on this issue? CHIMEs should know better. Finally, I hope CHIME will do the right thing. Although seeking a summary judgment early on makes it clear CHIME feels it has good standing the lawsuit. Time has moved us HIT folks on, as it always does. There are bigger issues to solve, but I do think the outcome of the lawsuit has definite implications for future challenges and the fine print regarding the term “solution.” Here’s hoping we all learn to play nice and with ethical intent.”

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