44818 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 185 / Tuesday, September 26, 2017 / Notices 

1http://rhrc.umn.edu/wp-content/files_mf/ 

1491501904UMRHRCOBclosuresPolicyBrief.pdf. 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1159V 

82. Sandra Blevins, New York, New 

York 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1161V 

83. Michele Harding on behalf of W. J. 

H., Madison, Wisconsin 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1164V 

84. Jody Larsen, Seattle, Washington 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1165V 

85. Alexis Garner on behalf of K. T. G., 

Hyattsville, Maryland 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1166V 

86. Elvira Cruz, Englewood, New Jersey 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1167V 

87. Rasheedah Smith, Lawrenceville, 

Georgia 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1169V 

88. Carol Clark, Boston, Massachusetts 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1170V 

89. Lesa Marie Bowman-Harris, Salem, 

Oregon 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1172V 

90. Jennifer Claypool, Dayton, Nevada 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1176V 

91. Theresa Anderson, White Plains, 

New York 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1178V 

92. Maureen C. Clavio, Orland Park, 

Illinois 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1179V 

93. Ellen Honea, Beverly Hills, 

California 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1180V 

94. Jared Sipes, Jacksonville, North 

Carolina 

Court of Federal Claims No: 17–1181V 

[FR Doc. 2017–20540 Filed 9–25–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4165–15–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Health Resources and Services 

Administration 

Challenge Competition: Improving 

Remote Monitoring of Pregnancy 

AGENCY: Health Resources and Services 

Administration, Department of Health 

and Human Services. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The Health Resources and 

Services Administration’s (HRSA’s) 

Maternal and Child Health Bureau 

(MCHB) announces a prize competition 

to support the development and testing 

of low-cost, scalable technology-based 

innovations to improve the ability of 

prenatal care providers to monitor the 

health and wellbeing of pregnant 

women remotely, especially women 

who live in rural and medicallyunderserved areas who have limited 

access to on-site prenatal care. 

The statutory authority for this 

challenge competition is Section 105 of 

the America COMPETES 

Reauthorization Act of 2010. 

This challenge, structured in three 

phases, will reach a diverse population 

of innovators and problem solvers 

including families, coders, public health 

experts, community leaders, individuals 

affiliated with academic institutions, 

research and development communities 

in the private sector, and others. 

All submissions will be evaluated; 

separate prizes will be awarded for each 

of the three phases below. 

Phase 1: Design 

Phase 2: Development and Small Scale 

Testing 

Phase 3: Scaling 

Estimated dates for each phase are as 

follows: 

Phase 1: Effective on January 2, 2018 

Phase 1 Submission Period Ends: 

January 31, 2018, 11:59 p.m. ET 

Phase 1 Judging Period: February 1– 

February 28, 2018 

Phase 1 Winners Announced: March 12, 

2018 

Phase 2 Begins: March 13, 2018 

Phase 2 Submission Period Ends: July 

11, 2018 

Phase 2 Judging Period: July 12–August 

12, 2018 

Phase 2 Winners Announced: August 

20, 2018 

Phase 3 Begins: August 21, 2018 

Phase 3 Submission Period Ends: 

February 21, 2019 

Phase 3 Winner Announced: March 1, 

2019 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Jessie Buerlein, MSW, Office of Policy 

and Planning, MCHB, JBuerlein@

hrsa.gov, (301) 443–8931, or James 

Resnick, Office of the Associate 

Administrator, MCHB, JResnick@

hrsa.gov, (301) 443–3222. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On 

January 4, 2011, the America 

COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 

was signed into law allowing the use of 

challenges and prize competitions 

increasing agencies’ ability to promote 

and harness innovation. Competitions 

run by the federal government result in 

a number of benefits to the public, 

including the following: 

(a) Increasing the number and 

diversity of the individuals, teams, and 

organizations that are addressing a 

particular problem or challenge of 

national significance; 

(b) Improving the skills of the 

participants in the competition; and 

(c) Directing attention to new market 

opportunities and stimulating private 

sector investment. 

Subject of Challenge Competition 

In recent years, technological 

advances have improved the ability of 

healthcare providers to monitor their 

patients from afar. For example, 

wearable biosensors provide for the 

remote monitoring of patients, athletes, 

premature infants, children, psychiatric 

patients, people who need long-term 

care, the elderly, and people in rural 

and medically underserved areas. 

Telemedicine is improving access for 

patients, while smartphone apps are 

improving patients’ ability for self-care. 

At the same time, recent scientific 

advances around developmental origins 

of health and disease point to the 

important role that environmental 

exposures, nutrition, and stress play in 

maternal health and fetal programming. 

Remote, real-time, and more continuous 

monitoring of harmful environmental 

exposures, nutritional intake and energy 

expenditure, and stress and sleep, along 

with blood pressure, proteinuria, blood 

glucose, and fetal heart rate, has the 

potential to improve prenatal care 

quality and pregnancy outcomes while 

reducing healthcare costs. 

Recent trends in hospital closures in 

rural America also increase the need for 

technological innovations that support 

remote monitoring of pregnant women. 

Between 2004 and 2014, 179 rural 

counties (9 percent of all rural counties) 

lost access to in-county hospital 

obstetric services, and the percent of all 

rural counties in the U.S. that lacked 

hospital obstetric services increased 

from 45 to 54 percent, due to hospital 

and obstetric-unit closures.1 Many lowincome women, in both rural and urban 

communities, do not access prenatal 

care. Fully conflicting priorities such as 

work, childcare, and transportation 

make it difficult to make the 

approximately 15 visits to their 

provider’s office, which include critical 

medical assessments and instructions 

about self-care. This challenge is 

designed to make technology work for 

pregnant women, increase access, 

improve communications (between 

patients and providers and across 

providers), and empower pregnant 

women to take better care of themselves. 

This challenge will support the 

development and testing of low-cost, 

scalable technology-based innovations 

to improve the ability of prenatal care 

providers to monitor the health and 

wellbeing of pregnant women from afar 

(e.g., in their homes); utilizing 

technology to empower patients and 

providers with more complete and upto-date information. 

Key design features of the innovations 

should include: 

Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 185 / Tuesday, September 26, 2017 / Notices 44819 

• The innovation is low-cost to 

families and scalable; 

• The innovation is safe, accurate, 

and effective; 

• The innovation supports remote, 

real-time, and more continuous 

monitoring and early detection; 

• The innovation improves 

communication between patients and 

providers; 

• The innovation improves patientcenteredness of prenatal care; 

• What gets monitored is grounded in 

science (e.g., developmental origins of 

health and disease); and 

• The innovation empowers patients 

to use their own health data to improve 

behaviors. 

Eligibility Rules for Participating in the 

Competition 

To be eligible to win a prize under 

this challenge, an individual or entity— 

(1) Shall have registered to participate 

in the competition under the rules 

promulgated by HRSA and the U.S. 

Department of Health and Human 

Services (HHS). 

(2) Shall have complied with all the 

requirements under this section. 

(3) In the case of a private entity, shall 

be incorporated in and maintain a 

primary place of business in the United 

States, and in the case of an individual, 

whether participating singly or in a 

group, shall be a citizen or permanent 

resident of the United States. 

(4) May not be a federal entity or 

federal employee acting within the 

scope of their employment. 

(5) Shall not be an HHS employee 

working on their applications or 

submissions during assigned duty 

hours. 

(6) May not be employees of HRSA or 

any other company, organization, or 

individual involved with the design, 

production, execution, judging, or 

distribution of the Challenge and their 

immediate family (i.e., spouse, parents 

and step-parents, siblings and stepsiblings, and children and stepchildren) and household members (i.e., 

people who share the same residence at 

least 3 months out of the year). 

(7) In the case of a federal grantee, 

may not use federal funds to develop 

COMPETES Act challenge applications 

unless consistent with the purpose of 

their grant award. 

(8) In the case of a federal contractor, 

may not use federal funds from a 

contract to develop COMPETES Act 

challenge applications or to fund efforts 

in support of a COMPETES Act 

challenge submission. 

(9) Shall not be deemed ineligible 

because the individual or entity used 

federal facilities or consulted with 

federal employees during a competition 

if the facilities and employees are made 

equitably available to all individuals 

and entities participating in the 

competition. 

(10) Must agree to assume any and all 

risks and waive claims against the 

federal government and its related 

entities, except in the case of willful 

misconduct, for any injury, death, 

damage, or loss of property, revenue, or 

profits, whether direct, indirect, or 

consequential, arising from the 

participation in this prize contest, 

whether the injury, death, damage, or 

loss arises through negligence or 

otherwise. 

(11) Must also agree to indemnify the 

federal government against third party 

claims for damages arising from or 

related to competition activities. 

(12) Shall not be currently on the 

Excluded Parties List (https://

www.epls.gov/). 

Submission Requirements 

The Challenge has three phases. 

Phase 1—Design 

The first stage of the prize 

competition aims to attract a large set of 

ideas and innovators. The target product 

of the first stage will be the 

conceptualization of the most promising 

innovations to improve the ability of 

prenatal care providers to monitor the 

health and wellbeing of pregnant 

women remotely, especially women 

who live in rural and medically 

underserved areas who have limited 

access to on-site prenatal care. 

The submissions should aim to 

demonstrate that the proposed 

intervention will be accessible across 

diverse backgrounds and easily 

implemented by users. 

The Phase 1 Submission shall 

include: 

1. A comprehensive description of the 

proposed intervention in five pages or 

less, including: 

a. A one-paragraph executive 

summary that clearly states the question 

to be solved; 

b. Background information linking the 

evidence to support the intervention; 

c. A descriptive analysis of how the 

applicant arrived at their idea; 

d. Descriptions of the methods and 

technologies involved in 

implementation of the intervention; and 

e. An assessment describing the 

applicant’s ability to execute the 

proposed solution in Phase 2 and 3. 

Phase 2—Development and Small Scale 

Testing 

The winners of Phase 1 of the prize 

competition will then advance to a 

second stage focused on prototyping the 

intervention, and testing the 

effectiveness of the intervention. Using 

support from the Phase 1 prize funding, 

intervention developers will test the 

efficacy of their models to show that the 

proposed intervention demonstrates an 

impact on the outcomes of interest for 

providers and pregnant women. The 

applicants should demonstrate both the 

evidence base for the intervention and 

its usability. Mentors will be available 

to help participants design appropriate 

testing methodologies and learn more 

about the evidence base. 

Phase 3—Scaling 

The winners of Phase 2 will move to 

the final phase of the incentive prize, 

which will involve testing the most 

promising models at greater scale 

through rollout at the program or 

community level. This will test the 

scalability of the device at low-cost, the 

feasibility of implementation, and the 

impact on the intended outcomes. 

Registration Process for Participants 

Participants will be able to register 

and submit an entry at the Improving 

Remote Monitoring of Pregnancy 

Challenge Web site. Participants can 

find out more information at https://

www.challenge.gov/list/. 

Prizes 

• Total: $375,000 in Prizes 

Æ Phase 1: 7–10 winners; up to a total 

of $100,000 in prizes 

Æ Phase 2: 3–5 winners; up to a total 

of $125,000 in prizes 

Æ Phase 3: 1 winner; up to a total of 

$150,000 prize 

Payment of the Prizes 

Prize payments will be paid by a 

contractor. Phase 1 winners may be 

expected to use a portion of the prize 

money for travel and lodging to attend 

a 2-day meeting in Washington, DC, to 

demonstrate their innovation to the 

judges. 

Prizes awarded under this 

competition will be paid by electronic 

funds transfer and may be subject to 

Federal income taxes. HHS will comply 

with the Internal Revenue Service 

withholding and reporting 

requirements, where applicable. 

Basis for Winner Selection 

A review panel composed of HHS 

employees and experts will judge 

challenge entries in compliance with 

the requirements of the America 

COMPETES Act and HHS judging 

guidelines: http://www.hhs.gov/idealab/ 

wp-content/uploads/2014/04/HHSCOMPETITION-JUDGINGGUIDELINES.pdf. 

44820 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 185 / Tuesday, September 26, 2017 / Notices 

The review panel will make selections 

based upon the following criteria: 

Phase 1 

Accessibility 

• Is the proposed intervention easily 

utilized by families of diverse economic, 

social, and cultural backgrounds? Is it 

functional across disciplines/users? 

Measurability 

• How easily will the proposed 

intervention be evaluated in order to 

determine its efficacy (in both lab 

testing and in the real world)? Is the 

proposed intervention measurable 

among various audiences? 

Sustainability 

• Does the proposed intervention 

compel users to utilize the technology 

often and/or for long periods of time? 

Does it fit into daily life? Is it fun to use? 

Impact 

• Does the applicant present a theory 

or explanation of how the proposed 

intervention would result in concrete 

change? 

Phase 2 

Impact 

• How did the intervention impact 

outcomes for providers and patients? 

What did data show? 

Evidence Base 

• Is the intervention grounded in 

existing science related to improving 

health care and related services for 

pregnant women? 

Sustainability 

• Was the intervention compelling to 

users and did it encourage users to use 

the technology often? Did users want to 

continuously engage with the 

technology? 

Implementation 

• How feasible is the intervention? 

How much support for implementation 

will the intervention require (estimated 

financial and time commitment)? 

Phase 3 

Impact 

• How effective was the intervention 

when implemented at scale? Did the 

impacts on users from Phase 2 remain 

consistent? 

Implementation 

• How feasible was the intervention 

on a larger scale? How much support for 

implementation did the model require 

(financial and time commitment)? How 

challenging was the actual program 

implementation? 

Scalability 

• How costly was the intervention in 

a real-world setting? How likely are cost 

efficiencies for program delivery at 

greater scale? Can the technology be 

used in existing platforms? 

Additional Information 

General Conditions: 

• HRSA reserves the right to cancel, 

suspend, and/or modify the contest, or 

any part of it, for any reason, at HRSA’s 

sole discretion. 

• The interventions submitted across 

all phases should not use the HHS or 

HRSA logos or official seals in the 

submission, and must not claim 

endorsement. 

Intellectual Property 

• Each entrant retains full ownership 

and title in and to their submission. 

Entrants expressly reserve all 

intellectual property rights not 

expressly granted under the challenge 

agreement. 

• By participating in the challenge, 

each entrant hereby irrevocably grants 

to HRSA a limited, non-exclusive, 

royalty-free, worldwide license and 

right to reproduce, publically perform, 

publically display, and use the 

submission for internal HHS business 

and to the extent necessary to 

administer the challenge, and to 

publically perform and publically 

display the submission, including, 

without limitation, for advertising and 

promotional purposes relating to the 

challenge. 

• Record Retention and FOIA: All 

materials submitted to HRSA as part of 

a submission become HRSA records and 

cannot be returned. Any confidential 

commercial information contained in a 

submission should be designated at the 

time of submission. Participants will be 

notified of any Freedom of Information 

Act requests for their submissions in 

accordance with 45 CFR 5.65. 

Dated: September 19, 2017. 

George Sigounas, 

Administrator. 

[FR Doc. 2017–20539 Filed 9–25–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4165–15–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Health Resources and Services 

Administration 

Notice of Non-Competitive, 

Supplemental Funding Award for Ryan 

White HIV/AIDS Program, Special 

Projects of National Significance 

AGENCY: Health Resources and Services 

Administration (HRSA), HHS. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: This non-competitive award 

will provide Secretary’s Minority AIDS 

Initiative Fund (SMAIF) supplemental 

funding to the Jurisdictional Approach 

to Curing Hepatitis C among HIV/HCV 

Coinfected People of Color—Evaluation 

and Technical Assistance Center 

(ETAC), RAND Corporation. This 

supplemental funding will allow RAND 

Corporation to provide evaluation and 

technical assistance to cooperative 

agreement recipients and subrecipient 

clinical sites under HRSA–17–047 

Curing Hepatitis C among People of 

Color Living with HIV. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Intended Recipient of the Award: 

RAND Corporation (U90HA30519). 

Amount of Non-Competitive Award: 

Up to $250,000 per year for 3 years 

(pending availability of future year 

funding). 

Period of Funding: September 30, 

2017, through September 29, 2020. 

CFDA Number: No. 93.928. 

Authority: The Consolidated 

Appropriations Act, 2017 (Pub. L. 115– 

31), Division H, Title II. 

Justification: In fiscal year (FY) 2016, 

the SMAIF Curing Hepatitis C among 

People of Color Living with HIV 

initiative was launched through three 

funding opportunities: (1) Jurisdictional 

Approach to Curing Hepatitis C among 

HIV/HCV Co-infected People of Color— 

Jurisdictional Sites (HRSA–16–189) and 

(2) Jurisdictional Approach to Curing 

Hepatitis C among HIV/HCV Coinfected 

People of Color—State Health 

Departments Coordinating Center 

(HRSA–16–195) to provide HIV primary 

medical care to low income, uninsured, 

and underserved people living with 

both HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV); 

and (3) Jurisdictional Approach to 

Curing Hepatitis C among HIV/HCV 

Coinfected People of Color—ETAC 

(HRSA–16–188) to provide evaluation 

and technical assistance to the funded 

sites. In FY17, HRSA–17–047 was 

announced to improve HCV prevention 

and care; improve coordination to 

linkage and retention in care; and 

enhance capacity of health department