Health Data Shootout competition targets solutions for post-traumatic stress disorder

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

The Center for Health Systems Innovation’s Institute for Predictive Medicine and the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University are hosting the Health Data Shootout Feb. 20 through March 14.

This year’s competition allows OSU undergraduate and graduate students to seek health care solutions for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental health problem that tends to occur after severe trauma or a life-threatening event. Unlike post-traumatic stress (PTS), PTSD is a clinically-diagnosed condition where the duration and intensity of the symptoms are more severe. Although eight million American adults in a given year suffer from PTSD, the problem is especially prevalent among veterans.

The Health Data Shootout is an opportunity for OSU students of any major and from any campus to group up in teams up to five people. As part of an interdisciplinary team, students will apply their diverse skills and knowledge to develop innovative insights and impactful solutions to a nationally recognized panel of experts.

Cash awards and a chance for a start-up to be hosted in the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship’s business incubator will be presented to the top teams. The goal of this competition is to identify new ideas and technologies that have potential to be translated into new implementable products and solutions.

“It is always very exciting when we can bring students from different disciplines who have different perspectives to work together on real-life problems and issues,” said Elvena Fong, health data analytics program manager at the Institute for Predictive Medicine. “Last time, we had some very creative solutions that resulted from these types of cross-disciplinary collaborations. This time, let’s see what we can find for both PTSD patients and veterans.”

The Shootout’s opening ceremony is Feb. 20 in the Starlight Terrace of the Student Union on OSU’s Stillwater campus. Students will be divided into interdisciplinary teams and will receive access to the dataset, data schema and templates for the report and presentation submissions at the opening ceremony.

Student teams will work from Feb. 21 to March 6 on identifying and developing a solution based on data, and teams will then submit a report and presentation of their data. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony March 14.

“Our hope for the students participating in this year’s Shootout is that they will be inspired by the data to develop innovative ideas and turn them into actionable business models that will support veterans and others facing symptoms of PTSD. What better way to thank our veterans for their service and sacrifice than to serve them when they return home,” said Alexces Bartley, outreach programs manager at the Riata Center.

Since its establishment in 2008, the Riata Center has focused its outreach efforts toward working with veteran entrepreneurs. The Veterans Entrepreneurship Program (VEP) was launched as an intended solution to high unemployment rates in veterans with service-connected disabilities, including those dealing with symptoms related to PTS and PTSD. The program aims to find ways to better help veterans returning home from active duty so that they may successfully accomplish their goals in civilian life.

“We are excited to be driving another Health Data Shootout event. Last year’s event that focused on Native American health issues was a home run,” said William Paiva, executive director for the Center for Health Systems Innovation. “This year we are focusing on PTSD which is another important health issue that impacts many, many people. These events are foundational for us to guide the health innovation solutions we develop within the Center for Health Systems Innovation.”

CHSI aims to transform the delivery of health care and improve outcomes for patients through innovative care solutions and data analytics. As part of CHSI, the Institute for Predictive Medicine manages and analyzes health data from Cerner Health Facts®, one of the largest clinical databases in the United States donated to the Center by Cerner Corporation. For the data shootout, a set of data that includes 76,000 PTSD patients was extracted from this database. All identifying patient information was removed.

To register for this event, students should plan on attending the Opening Ceremony. Those interested in receiving the latest news and updates can also pre-register.

For additional information, visit the Health Data Shootout website.