Annual UMN Interdisciplinary Health Data Competition

• Registration: November 18 - December 15
  Register as a team or an individual you will be placed on a team.
• Competition Kick-off: February 4 (virtual)
   Required data set and challenge theme/guidelines are announced.
• Project Submission Deadline: February 16, 11:59 p.m.
  Teams must submit their analysis as a one-page Executive Summary and PowerPoint presentation (20 slides max), including a presentation voice-over (max 20 min).
• Round 1 Judging: February 17 - 18 - 19
  Sit back and relax. Judges will review all the projects and select the top 4 teams.
• Final Presentations: February 26 
  Top 4 teams present in-person to a panel of judges. All teams are invited.

• Competition is open to all current graduate and professional degree-seeking students at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
• Maximum of 5 students per team
• Each team must have students from at least 2 different colleges or schools within the U of M Twin Cities
• Students may only participate on one team
• You can form your own team or request to be placed on a team
• No individual entries are allowed

Teams are required to use a specified dataset created for use in the competition. Additional publicly available data use is permitted. 

2025 Data Set Partner & Theme: 

• We are thrilled to announce mimilabs, a vibrant community of healthcare data experts, bonded by a mutual enthusiasm for using public data to spark healthcare innovation, as our data partner for this year's competition! 

• This years theme is "Healthcare Provider Deep Dive: Connecting Quality, Payment, and Social Context"

Our aim with this theme is to enable students to dive into a comprehensive data set, covering a variety of healthcare provider characteristics. Specifically, the data set will include information on providers’ participation in quality payment programs, such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), along with their associated scores, rewards or penalties, and relevant social context tied to the geographic areas in which they practice. 

Round 1:

• Submit a one-page Executive Summary - maximum of 500 words (not including references)
• Submit a PowerPoint presentation outlining the team's project - maximum of 20 slides
• Record a voice-over with PowerPoint, presenting the team's analysis, insights, and innovations - maximum of 20 minutes

Final:

• The top 4 finalists will present their projects to a panel of academic & industry expert judges.
• Each team has 20 minutes to present followed by approximately 5 minutes for judges' questions

An evaluation rubric will be provided to Teams when the data is released.

• First Place Team: $4,000
• Second Place Team: $2,000
• Third Place Team: $1,000

2025 1st Round Judges:

Industry Experts:

• Len Kne: U-Spatial (UMN RIO)
• Ed Walczak, MD: Yale New Haven Health
• Todd Johnson, MBA: IZiel Healthcare
• Jennifer Brown: Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP
• Craig Solid, PhD: Solid Research Group LLC
• Sawyer Radermacher: Optum
• Justin Jobelius: rareESSENCE, LLC
• Josh Heurung: Exact Sciences
• Rachel Cahoon: MN Department of Health

Faculty:

• Steve Johnson, PhD: Institute for Health Informatics
• Robin Austin, PhD, DNP, DC, RN-BC: Center for Nursing Informatics
• Jeff Clement, PhD: Augsburg University
• Helen Parsons, PhD: School of Public Health, Health Policy and Management
• Julian Wolfson, PhD: School of Public Health, Biostatistics
• De Liu, PhD: Carlson School of Management
• Quincy Gu, PhD: University of Pittsburgh

2025 Final Round Judges:

• Yubin Park, PhD: mimilabs
• Heather Britt, MPH, PhD: Wilder Research
• Benjamin Lynch, PhD: Minnesota Supercomputing Institute, UMN

• Hayley Borck: Data Science Initiative, UMN

   

This competition would not be possible without the support and involvement of University of Minnesota faculty and industry partners!

Since 2023, the Interdisciplinary Health Data Competition is part of the 1Health interprofessional education curriculum at the University of Minnesota. This means that the competition offers a valuable interprofessional learning experience that has been carefully designed to expand upon students' skills and knowledge in preparation for their future as collaborative health professionals. 

For scholars participating in the 1Health interprofessional education curriculum this means that upon completion of the Interdisciplinary Health Data Competition, a record demonstrating your involvement in this experience will be added to your personal "1Health IPE Transcript" which can be accessed via the 1Health Database after completing all competition requirements and reflection.   

I registered as an individual. When will I find out what team I am on? 

• Emails will be sent prior to Kickoff to all registered participants and will include their team members' information as well as other important details.   

Are we more in favor of an exploratory analysis?

• It is up to your team whether you want to do exploratory analysis, predictive analysis, or take another approach. 

I competed in the Health Data Competition in the past. Can I compete again?

• Yes! Past participants are welcome to compete again since each year the topic and required dataset change so teams will need to take different approaches and bring new insights to their projects.

Our team members are dual-degree programs from the same 2 schools. Does this meet the requirement of 2 colleges/schools?

• Yes! Dual-degree programs meet the requirement of having 2 colleges/schools represented on each team.

I am a part-time student. Can I participate in the competition? 

• Yes! All graduate and professional degree-seeking students at the University of Minnesota are eligible to participate. 

Can our project focus on one specific area of the dataset or do all aspects of the data need to be used? 

• Teams can choose a topic that is of most interest to them while utilizing the required dataset in some way. They can choose a specific topic that only incorporates a portion of the required dataset while using other publicly available data. 

Contact [email protected] with additional questions.  

See past competition information here.