Joy of Medicine Challenge Winners Announced

James Ryan

19 May, 2015

Medstro, the Social Network for Physicians, and Geneia, a company of experienced healthcare change agents creating analytic and technology solutions to improve healthcare, today announced the three finalists in the Geneia Joy of Medicine Challenge. The Challenge – an online competition created to encourage U.S.-licensed physicians and medical students to submit their ideas for relieving the regulatory and business-related burdens that are negatively impacting meaningful interaction between physicians and their patients – was launched by Geneia after its survey of 400 physicians found alarming levels of dissatisfaction. Among the most distressing findings,

84% of physicians believe quality patient time may be a thing of the past.
87% believe that the “business and regulation of healthcare” gets in the way of providing satisfactory patient care.
67% know a physician who is likely to stop practicing medicine in the next five years, as the result of physician burnout.

Physicians were invited to share their ideas in three categories – Electronic Health Record (EHR) of the Future, Population Health, and Joy of Medicine – via Medstro, an online professional network and career development community for physicians.

“I know firsthand that physician burnout is real and negatively impacts everyone in healthcare, including patients. My stress level and dissatisfaction ultimately led me to create Medstro and hopefully to serve as a role model and mentor for other physicians who have ideas to improve medicine and restore the passion they once had,” said Dr. Jennifer Joe, Founder and CEO of Medstro. “The Geneia Joy of Medicine Challenge is an important initiative to help ignite and reward the problem-solving nature of physicians.”

The three winning submissions are:

EHR of the Future Award: Patient-Centered EHR: Engaging Technology to Improve the Patient-Doctor Relationship submitted by Lolita Alkureishi, MD – Assistant Professor at University of Chicago Medical School

Population Health Award: Memorandum: ‘Intelligent’ Mobile Messaging and Predictive Analytics to Personalize Primary Care submitted by Nisarg Patel, MD Candidate at Harvard Medical School, in collaboration with a group of students at Georgia Tech

Joy of Medicine Award: Dealing with Death: A Mechanism to Reduce Costs and Improve Care submitted by Hashim Zaidi, MD Candidate at Baylor College of Medicine

“The findings in Geneia’s survey of physicians and the resulting Physician Misery Index compelled us to take action,” said Heather Lavoie, Geneia’s Chief Operating Officer. “The Joy of Medicine Challenge helped to convene a much-needed and long overdue conversation about how to reverse dissatisfaction by putting physicians at the forefront of creating physician- and patient-focused solutions. Their ideas and the dialogue between the physician entrants and judges have been truly inspirational, and I hope, a sign that the change is underway.”

A panel of physician judges, in combination with peer-sourced online voting, chose the three finalists. Each finalist was awarded a $1,000 cash prize and the opportunity to present their idea at a head-to-head, live pitch-off on June 8th at MATTER, Chicago’s newly launched healthcare technology incubator for next-generation health IT, medical device, diagnostics, and biopharma companies. The winner of the pitch-off event receives in-kind Geneia consulting resources valued at $5,000 to further develop their idea.

More information about the finalists can be found at: https://medstro.com/groups/joy?type=submissions&order=votes.

James Ryan

Jim Ryan has spent the past 20 years building global markets for US-based telecommunications and enterprise technology companies. Mr. Ryan exited five startups (2 IPOs, 2 acquisitions, 1 Chapter 11) and now uses his expertise as one of the three founding partners of Farpoint Ventures helping startups from the US quickly build global sales channels and bring in revenues from overseas markets. Mr. Ryan has closed over $1B in export business for startups.Mr. Ryan holds a Bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a Master's degree from Osaka University. He is a native speaker of Japanese, and is conversational in Mandarin Chinese and French.In between meetings, he has climbed Mt. Rainier three times, finished the Boston Marathon and Cape Cod Marathon, climbed Mt. Washington in all four seasons and hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon 10 times. He holds a Private Pilot license and enjoys flying his Cessna 172 around New England and beyond.