I'm Cheryl Clark, senior quality editor with HealthLeaders Media.  I'm doing a column about efforts to figure out which hospital readmissions are preventable.  I wrote a column about this in late 2010, and mentioned the Heritage Prize at that time. As the deadline for submissions approaches, I'm interested in interviewing anyone who has a serious submission as to why they are entering this contest, how they are doing it (in general, for a non-technical audience of healthcare providers) and what they expect to get out of it.  Column won't run until after the deadline has passed.  cclark@healthleadersmedia.com or 619-294-5737.  Would like to quote sources, but am willing to keep details confidential.  Thanks. need to talk with someone today, tonight, or early tomorrow. I'm in California and am flexible.

Here is the link to the Dec. 30, 2010 column I wrote about the Heritage Prize.

$3 Million Prize Offered to Solve Hospital Admissions Puzzle

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/QUA-260799/3-Million-Prize-Offered-to-Solve-Hospital-Admissions-Puzzle

All you have to do is design an elegant math model that accurately identifies which of 100,000 patients from an actual 2009 database required an unplanned hospital admission in 2010.

Hi Cheryl. Where did you get the iformation about the data being from 2009 & 2010? As far as I am aware no one has said when the data was from.

Thank you. 

That was from an interview with Dr. Merkin, plus information from his publicist. Since the actual kick off was April 4, 2011, they may have modified or changed that ingredient, and not told me. I haven't revisited the issue until now, but then again, no one has asked for a change in that story.

Thanks Cheryl. I was wandering about what year Y4 is too, even though it wouldn't make any difference in my predictions.

619 is my area code too. I learned about this contest while I was working on my weekend project called ClisMap, which is a clinical trials finder. I was hoping to mashup geolocation of clinical trials with HPN data before I looked at the data. I'm thankful to Heritage Provider Network and Kaggle for this contest, but it seems to me that we are getting garbage in, garbage out (no offense to anyone).

Can I speak with you briefly?  you can call me at 619-294-5737.  Thanks.

To all:  Here's my column about the prize, and its potential impact on hospitals and healthcare costs.

$3 Million Health Puzzler Draws to a Close

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/QUA-290799/3-Million-Health-Puzzler-Draws-to-a-Close

Good luck to everybody!

Regards,

Cheryl Clark

This is a physical puzzle games that needs to invest more time and effort. Can you share any of those participants made the lucky one?

Regards.

Henry, game developer and designer for http://www.igamesforgirls.com/puzzle.