Heritage Provider Network (HPN) is launching the $3 million Heritage Health Prize, with help from data prediction contest operator Kaggle.

HPN is releasing anonymized patient health records, hospitalization records, and claims data. The team that can come up with the best algorithm to predict which patients have the greatest need for hospitalization wins the big bucks.

As they put it:

“More than 71 Million individuals in the United States are admitted to hospitals each year, according to the latest survey from the American Hospital Association. Studies have concluded that in 2006 well over $30 billion was spent on unnecessary hospital admissions. Each of these unnecessary admissions took away one hospital bed from someone else who needed it more…Can we identify earlier those most at risk and ensure they get the treatment they need? The Heritage Provider Network (HPN) believes that the answer may be “yes” – but to do it will require harnessing the world’s top experts from many fields. Heritage launched the $3 million Heritage Health Prize with one goal in mind: to develop a breakthrough algorithm that uses available patient data, including health records and claims data, to predict and prevent unnecessary hospitalizations.

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