Raleigh startup Axial Exchange has taken home first place in a national competition for health information technology firms sponsored by a federal agency.

Axial will receive a $25,000 prize for winning the contest sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services, which called for innovative ways to improve patient safety as they move from hospitals back to their homes or to another facility.

Axial won for its Care Transition Suite, which enables a broad spectrum of health care providers -- Emergency Medical Service personnel, hospitals and physicians, as well as health insurers -- to receive automatic updates about patients as they wend through the emergency care system.

"Two-thirds of patients can neither describe their diagnosis or state the purpose of their medications," co-founder and CEO Joanne Rohde said in a prepared statement. "Our application not only engages patients, but also ensures that information flows to all caregivers in a way that benefits health systems, payors and patients."

Axial raised more than $1 million earlier this year in its first round of venture capital funding.