ONC names 9 EHIgnite Challenge phase one winners

The ONC has announced the winners of phase one of its EHIgnite Challenge, awarding $10,000 each to nine teams of health IT developers that proposed new tools and workflows for transforming raw electronic health information into usable insights. The nine winners were invited to advance to phase two, wherein they will develop and test their proposed solution and compete for a $400,000 prize pool.

ONC announced its EHIgnite Challenge in February 2026 to solve the issue of integrating raw EHI exports.

"Since December 2023, health IT developers have been required to export EHI, but 'computable' doesn't always mean 'usable,'" ONC stated. "Raw exports are often overwhelming and difficult to integrate." 

EHI export functionality is a requirement of Certified Health IT, but these exports can be inconsistent and challenging for patients and clinicians to use, ONC added. As such, ONC launched the challenge to encourage the creation of solutions like interactive patient tools that enable patients to ask questions about their health data and receive sound responses, the integration of exports from multiple care settings and the streamlined sharing of information for insurance coverage.

ONC received nearly 100 proposals in response to the challenge, which were due in May 2026. The nine phase one winners proposed a variety of tools, largely leveraging AI to make sense of dense EHI exports.

For example, one winner, MediVu, combines natural language processing, advanced AI and structured queries to "deliver intuitive narratives, recovery plans, and dashboards through FHIR-enabled portals," ONC explained.

Another winner, venture capital firm Precision Health Ventures, aims to provide an AI platform that ingests wearables data and FHIR records to create patient health narratives.

Winner HealthLink360 markets itself as a precision wellness platform that builds a digital twin from users' health data and offers weekly plans that fit their routines. Using agentic AI, the company "makes raw EHI usable across the healthcare ecosystem by scoring facts for recency and consistency, expanding into behavioral, biometric, and social determinants data," ONC stated.

Meanwhile, Avista Development LLC will use AI to translate EHI exports into scenario summaries, thereby surfacing missed follow-ups and care gaps, and  CareLead will build a "patient-governed" platform that brings clinical conflicts to the patient's attention and turns reconciled records into structured tasks and visit summaries.

HubChart, currently offered as a free app, touts its ability to convert exports into plain-language summaries using secure SMS links. Fellow winner Benten Technologies also converts exports into plain-language care summaries, but with a focus on maternal health and substance use recovery.

Omni Health aims to use agentic AI to coordinate on behalf of caregivers, automate medication management and schedule appointments. Finally, Washington Health Summary aims to aggregate data from EHRs, state registries and insurers into one patient-controlled record, using AI to fill gaps and translate medical terminology into plain language.

All submissions underwent a strict evaluation process led by an expert panel, followed by an internal ONC review, the announcement stated.

"Across the selected submissions, reviewers noted common strengths: strong summarization capabilities, clear use cases, and visual wireframes that made complex information more intuitive for patients," ONC said.

The nine winners will participate in a phase one showcase webinar on Aug. 6. Phase two will conclude in March 2027, and first-, second- and third-place winners will be announced in April 2027.

Jill Hughes has covered health tech news since 2021. Her coverage areas include cybersecurity, HIPAA compliance, interoperability, AI and EHRs.