Patient Safety Technology Challenge’s New Focus Empowers Patients and Pushes for Consumer-Driven Solutions to Medical Errors
Type: News
Focus Area: Patient Safety
Pictured are DocuDoc team members (left to right): Ava Gonick, John Cornell, and Wren Xue, who won the consumer-focused Patient Safety Tech Challenge prize at IrvineHacks 2025. They created a tool designed to bridge the gap between doctor’s orders and after visit follow through, providing patients with an easy-to-understand summary and transcription of their visit.
The Patient Safety Technology Challenge was born out of a recognition of the bleak reality Americans face when it comes to interacting with an unsafe healthcare system and a call to action. Medical error is estimated to be the third leading cause of death in the U.S., contributing to 250,000 deaths per year and even more disabilities. While traditional approaches to patient safety have resulted in short-term improvements, these "spot removals" have not yet moved the needle on reducing medical errors in the U.S.
The Patient Safety Technology Challenge was designed to fuel the engagement of students and other innovators in galvanizing unique, new approaches and creating transformational solutions to reduce preventable harm from medical error. The initiative injects patient safety awards into existing local, regional, and national competitions, from hackathons to start-up weekends, to support budding tech-enabled patient safety solutions and increase awareness of the patient safety crisis.
Thus far, the Challenge has sponsored or reached:
- 100+prizes sponsored
- 78 competitions in 27 states
- 22,000+participants
- 1,080participating patient safety teams
- 650+academic institutions
In 2025, the Patient Safety Technology Challenge selected its first focus area; it will be supporting innovations that center the consumer (i.e. patients and their support systems), recognizing that individuals and their support systems are more empowered to advocate for themselves when they are equipped with both the knowledge and tools to do so.
Therefore, PRHI will support projects across the five problem categories (medications, procedural/surgical, patient care, infections, and diagnostic safety) that are also consumer-focused innovations. Tech-enabled solutions can play a significant role in helping to bridge the communication divide between a patient and their provider, for instance, which can increase medical literacy among patients and aid medical providers in making more informed decisions.
Additionally, people know their bodies better than anyone else, and technology can aid patients to take control of their health, increase independence and decrease reliance on external assistance, better understand their symptoms within the context of their medical history, the level of acuity and how to address those symptoms, and whether they should contact their medical provider.
