I woke up at 2:30 a.m. eastern this morning with a single thought
-- what the American health system needs is an X Prize. Had it not been so cold (it's hard to keep a Maine country house warm when it's 20 below zero), I might have written my blog immediately. I'm glad I didn't.

Instead, I waited until the coffee machine kicked in at 5:30 a.m.. I padded down to the kitchen, logged in, and Googled the X Prize Foundation (http://www.xprize.org/). For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the X Prize, it helps to know that these were the folks who funded the $10 million prize given to "the first private team to build and launch a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to 100 kilometers above the earth's surface, twice within two weeks." In 2004, aerospace designer Burt Rutan and Paul Allen (he of Microsoft fame) won the prize with SpaceShipOne (see the video http://space.xprize.org/ansari-x-prize/video-archive).

The idea was so successful and inspiring that several other X Prizes are now on offer to anyone -- really, anyone -- who can solve challenges related to genomics ($10 million), robotic lunar landings ($30 million) and automotive fuel superefficiency ($10 million).

Try to guess the very first thing my research turned up? Somebody else had already thought of the same thing: a Healthcare X Prize (http://www.xprize.org/future-x-prizes/healthcare-x-prize). Yep, among the list of concepts pegged for a future X Prize competition is one "designed to generate new ways to address the nation's serious health care system challenges."

Before you start sharpening your pencil to win the prize, know this -- the Healthcare X Prize hasn't actually been offered yet. Right now, there are three projects under development in the Life Sciences division. The healthcare project (sponsored by Wellpoint) is being considered alongside efforts to develop a better tuberculosis diagnostics tool and a proposal to develop a "Cancer Suite" of programs aimed at prevention, diagnosis and cure of cancer. According to the X Prize foundation, creation of a prize and its rollout to the public can take between 8-14 months.

But on the other hand, the healthcare project seems well underway. There are video testimonials from industry experts such as Dr. Herbert Pardes (President and CEO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital) and Newt Gingrich. And there are a slew of comments from visitors to the site already.

According to a post (http://www.xprize.org/future-x-prizes/healthcare-x-prize#comment-167) by one of the site administrators, Jean Levasseur, the project is still soliciting input for the prize design. Says Levasseur, "We've just begun the prize development process in exploring whether the prize model will work in this area, and what the specific problems in healthcare the prize needs to solve. If you have ideas for what the prize should be focused around, you can leave them here as a comment, or if you are an expert in the healthcare field and want to have a more active role in advising the prize development, you can contact us."

I can't imagine a better group of people to provide input than the readers of Healthcare IT News and Healthcare Finance News. If you have ideas about how to develop the structure, guidelines and judging criteria for a Healthcare X PRIZE, please feel free to send them to me at jack.beaudoin@medtechpublishing.com. I can't think of a more exciting effort underway today!