Healthcare Hackathons Provide Educational and Innovation Opportunities: A Case Study and Best Practice Recommendations

Abstract

Physicians and other healthcare professionals are often the end users of medical innovation; however, they are rarely involved in the beginning design stages. This often results in ineffective healthcare solutions with poor adoption rates. At the early design stage, innovation would benefit from input from healthcare professionals. This report describes the first-ever rehabilitation hackathon—an interdisciplinary and competitive team event aimed at accelerating and improving healthcare solutions and providing an educational experience for participants. Hackathons are gaining traction as a way to accelerate innovation by bringing together a diverse group of interdisciplinary professionals from different industries who work collaboratively in teams and learn from each other, focus on a specific problem (“pain point”), develop a solution using design thinking techniques, pitch the solution to participants, gather fast feedback and quickly alter the prototype design (“pivoting”). 102 hackers including 19 (18.6 %) physicians and other professionals participated, and over the course of 2 days worked in teams, pitched ideas and developed design prototypes. Three awards were given for prototypes that may improve function in persons with disabilities. 43 hackers were women (42.2 %) and 59 men (57.8 %); they ranged in age from 16 to 79 years old; and, of the 75 hackers who reported their age, 63 (84 %) were less than 40 years old and 12 (16 %) were 40 years or older. This report contributes to the emerging literature on healthcare hackathons as a means of providing interdisciplinary education and training and supporting innovation.

Workarounds in the Danish Health Sector – from Tacit to Explicit Innovation

“…This may be one reason why contemporary health care staff are kept in roles primarily as end-users of technology (Silver et al, 2016) but also as public servants subjected to an organizational culture of zero-failure (Høyrup & Andersen, 2012). Thus, they are discouraged from experimenting with and deviating from the official procedures because they fear the (negative) health consequences this might provoke.…”

“…However, the outcome can be quite different than intended, as demonstrated by indicators showing that 25% of all IT projects fail outright, 20-25% do not live up to their financial objectives, and up to 50% require 'material rework' in at least one area (IDC, 2009, quoted by Joseph Gulla, 2012. The responses to these failures have resulted in a variety of solutions and methodologies, from improved project management (PMI, 2017), more agile methodologies (Beck et al, 2001), and open source-inspired collaborative development models (Raymond, 1999) to employee-driven innovation (Høyrup, 2010), design thinking (Ferreira et al, 2015), and participatory design (Simonsen et al, 2015), recently supplemented with 'healthcare hackathons' specifically focused on health care (Silver et al, 2016). Although all of these responses are examples of distinct methodologies that are more or less theoretically and organizationally developed, they all circle around the explicit need to include diverse professional viewpoints in the early design and innovation stages and thus facilitate more sustainable solutions.…”

HACKATHON multidisciplinario: fortalecimiento del aprendizaje basado en proyectos

“…Consideramos que, la generación de ideas a través de este tipo de aplicaciones educativas e innovadoras requiere de tiempo y organización en equipos multidisciplinarios para generar propuestas, aplicar conocimiento e inferir resultados. El reto actual dentro de la educación superior es la necesidad urgente de cambiar el enfoque de enseñanza, para proveer a los estudiantes destrezas adicionales que les permitan analizar y resolver problemas reales (Silver, Binder, Zubcevik, & Zafonte, 2016).…”

“…Oscar Amable Vivanco Galván, Darwin Castillo Malla, Yuliana Jiménez Gaona DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.22458/caes.v9i1.1893 Artículo protegido por licencia Creative Commons 122 educativas como una herramienta para mejorar la formación universitaria, brindando una educación de calidad. El Hackathon basa su aplicación en lineamientos del modelo Design Thinking, el cual centra su eficacia en entender las necesidades reales de los usuarios, y estipula cambiar el enfoque de enseñanza, para proveer a los estudiantes mejores métodos y técnicas que les permitan analizar y resolver desafíos en escenarios reales dentro de su ámbito profesional (Silver et al, 2016).…”

Learning at large conferences: from the ‘sage on the stage’ to contemporary models of learning

“…These include ‘Unconferences’, organized around participant-driven discussions on topics of interest, which replace traditional keynotes or sessions, and/or post-plenary discussions. Hackathons [2] and BarCamp [3] are open events in which people from different disciplines and with different skillsets collaboratively work to develop innovative ideas and find creative technology-based solutions to key challenges. Similarly, massive open online courses (MOOC) and webinars can offer the opportunity to present material in advance of face-to-face meetings [4].…”