Practice Fusion Invites Health Researchers to 'Analyze This!' Contest on Windows Azure

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Practice Fusion, the free, web-based Electronic Health Record (EHR) company, is working with Microsoft's DataMarket on the Windows Azure Marketplace for its Analyze This! challenge.  The nationwide contest for developers and researchers is part of the Health 2.0 and US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Developer Challenge with the support of the Chief Technology Officer of the US, Aneesh Chopra.

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Developer teams are invited to unlock answers to pressing public health questions using Practice Fusion's anonymized health data on DataMarket, a service on Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud platform that provides a marketplace and delivery channel for high quality information.  The Practice Fusion data can be used to identify trends, find adverse drug reactions, chart chronic disease, mash up the results with other MarketPlace data or to build an app.  The challenge promotes innovation and new technology as an emerging solution to major public health issues.

"This dataset is a virtual schematic of healthcare answers," said Matthew Douglass, Vice President of Product Development at Practice Fusion.  "I'm excited to see how the Analyze This! teams respond to  the challenge.  Chronic disease, healthcare trends, disease outbreaks – even a simple analysis has the potential to reveal major public health findings."

Development teams receive access to free, anonymous health data from Practice Fusion along with other MarketPlace datasets.  They are competing to develop public health solutions for a $5,000 prize and chance to demo live on stage at Health 2.0 San Diego.  With 65,000 medical providers and 7 million patients, the Practice Fusion platform is emerging as a key testing ground national health trends.

Corporate, individual and academic development teams are welcome. Interested teams can review details of Practice Fusion Analyze This! online and are also invited to participate any of the three Health 2.0 Developer Challenge Code-a-thons held live in the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington DC and Boston in 2011.  The Code-a-thons are all day events where developers can connect, collaborate and build solutions in real-time.  The deadline for completed submissions is February 28, 2011.  Learn more about the Health 2.0 Developer Challenge.

About Practice Fusion

Practice Fusion provides a free, web-based Electronic Health Record (EHR) system to primary care physicians.  With charting, scheduling, e-prescribing, billing, lab integrations, referral letters, unlimited support and a Personal Health Record for patients, Practice Fusion's EMR addresses the complex needs of today's healthcare providers and disrupts the health IT status quo.  Practice Fusion is the fastest growing EHR community in the country with more than 65,000 users and 7 million patients.  For more information about Practice Fusion, please visit practicefusion.com.

About Health 2.0

The Health 2.0 Conference is the leading showcase of cutting-edge technologies in health care, including Online Communities, Search and Lightweight Tools for consumers to manage their health and connect to providers online.  Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya collaborated to organize the first Health 2.0 conference in September 2007 in San Francisco.  Health 2.0 has been featured in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Huffington Post, on CNN, CBS News, and in the healthcare trade press.  The Washington Post called the conference "...a high-energy gathering of great minds..."  Now many conferences on, Health 2.0 has become the place to see and be seen for the leaders in health care technology.  In addition Health 2.0 has set up a non-profit industry consortium, the Health 2.0 Accelerator, and a research consulting service, Health 2.0 Advisors.  But above all Health 2.0 remains a venue where innovation in technology is introduced and ground-breaking ideas are shared to drive change in the health care system.

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Matt Douglass

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SOURCE Practice Fusion