E-Medical Records Get A Mobile, Open-Sourced Overhaul By White House Health Design Challenge Winners

The standard electronic medical record is a confusing, text-heavy computer read-out. But the winners of Designer Fund and the White House’s Health Design Challenge have created beautiful, comprehensible, mobile versions. Soon, a combination of the best of the submissions will be open-sourced and implemented as the record format for the Veterans Affair Administration and its 6 million patients.

The challenge was launched in November by the White House and a new community of philanthropic angel investors called Designer Fund . Directed by five-year Facebook designer Ben Blumenfeld and 500 Startups founding team member Enrique Allen, Designer Fund aims to advise and back designer-led startups with a positive social impact.

The Health Design Challenge to redesign the electronic medical record (EMR) was a huge success, pulling in 230 submissions compared to 80 submissions in a previous White House health challenge. Blumenfeld tells me that “from a quantity standpoint it was amazing, but from a quality standpoint too. People thought through all sorts of ways for the electronic medical record to expand and live on mobile, and have preventative care in there too.”...