#FierceMadness: Round 2 kicks off with buzzwords like 'transformative,' 'blockchain' and 'big data' advancing

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It's been a battle over the past two days, but we have our first round of winners in this year’s healthcare buzzwords tournament.

Among those that will advance to Round 2 of FierceMadness?

With 274 of you weighing in, "IoT" beat out "SaaS" 62% to 38%, while the word "transformative" beat out "game changer" by the same margin.

Here are more of the results:

In our technology category: 

  • "APIs" totally demolished "FHIR," 84% to 16%.
  • "Artificial intelligence" soundly defeated "machine learning," 73% to 27%
  • Other winners included "telehealth" over "predictive analytics" (54% to 46%) and "big data," which beat out "cloud computing," 71% to 29%.

In our marketing category:

  • In what was a bit of a surprise for this FierceHealthcare writer, the phrase "breaking down silos" convincingly beat out "bending the cost curve," 63% to 37%.
  • "Patient-centered" beat out "consumerism" by 63.5% compared to 36.5%.
  • "Disruption" was the champion in the competition over "alignment" with 68% of your votes.
  • And while health systems are still trying to decide what to call the new era of using genomics, FierceHealthcare readers have spoken and with 61% of the votes, "precision medicine" came out on top as the more used term over "personalized medicine."

In our care models category:

  • In a particularly close race, "social determinants" just barely beat out "population health," 51% to 49%.
  • Meanwhile, "patient engagement" walloped "physician burnout" with 70% of your votes. 
  • "Value proposition" beat out "ROI" with 55.5% of your votes, while "integration" beat out "intervention," 64% to 35%.
  • "Outcomes-based" beat out "evidence-based" with 53% of your votes.

And finally, in our policy category: 

  • "Interoperability" won over "price transparency," 59% to 41%.
  • "Incentives" beat out "accountability," 51% to 49%, while "market-driven reforms" won out over "flexible solutions," 69% to 31%.
  • When it comes to the innovation arena, "pilot" was the winner over "demonstration" with 62% of your votes. Meanwhile, pulling from the discussion about drug prices, "middlemen" beat out the "black box" on pricing that everyone keeps talking about, 54% to 46%.

Bracket time.

While there's been some friendly competition in the FierceMadness headquarters over words like "blockchain" and "integration," this particular FierceHealthcare writer's bracket is totally busted after the word "solution" was eliminated in the first round by "platform."

Among our participants out there who are still solidly in the game, Tatlin Resetich put out a bracket that was pretty bullish on the word "transformative."

 

We want to hear from you. What word absolutely needs to win FierceMadness? Or what word did we totally miss when we were putting together this bracket? Facebook follower David Crais had some great examples of buzzwords we missed, offering up “real world data” and “concierge.”

If you haven’t filled out your printable bracket yet, get it right here, and don’t forget to tweet us a photo of your completed picks!