How do the design features of health hackathons contribute to participatory medicine?

Abstract

The Hackathon concept is attracting interest as a vehicle for participatory development in both Health and Information systems. Publically available datasets, cloud based data storage, and increasingly sophisticated analytical methods, combined with user friendly development tools for mobile devices are inspiring innovation in the participatory medicine space. This has the potential to disrupt traditional methods and deliver solutions more rapidly, and in a form more likely to meet requirements. In health applications this involves putting the patient and their supports at the centre of design. This work contributes to solving the challenges involved in bringing a diverse cohort of designers, developers, problem owners, healthcare providers, patients, and citizens together to solve user-driven self-care problems using technology. We use a descriptive case study approach focussing on two weekend-long hackathons dubbed "Health Hackathon: Solving Self-care". We gather thick data from multiple sources according to the process defined by Geertz (1994) first, to provide a rich picture of the role of hackathons in participatory medicine and second, to contribute evidence to the practise of running a hackathon. Some key originalities of our work include seeking more candid responses via selfserve interviews. Through this, controversially, we noted a marked emphasis on the creative process over concerns for privacy and ethics around the personal data cloud created by hackathon products. We build on existing theories of participatory medicine and emerging methodologies for conducting hackathons to provide evidence of the efficacy of the hacking approach both in terms of outcome and team dynamics. Through interviews, observation, twitter feeds and a pre-survey, we identify a number of success factors including (1) group size, (2) maturity of the idea, (3) level of involvement of a mentor, and (4) involvement of students. In addition we identify five skills identified by successful health hackathon participants; knowledge, patient focussed skills, analytical skills, software design skills and professional perspective. In common with previous studies we find that there are considerable social benefits that accrue in running a hackathon. Participants meet new people and learn first-hand of the challenges and opportunities provided by the skill sets and work environments of others. This work builds on the existing body of research concerning hackathons and in particular work in the context of participatory medicine

A Review of Human-Computer Interaction Design Approaches towards Information Systems Development

“…It requires negotiations between systems designers and users in order to ensure users requirements are met (Crişan, 2017). and certain level of satisfactions are also met (Day, Humphrey, & Cockcroft, 2017). in terms of interface functionality, flexibility and usability.…”

“…As seen in Table 1, (Punchoojit & Hongwarittorrn, 2017). argued that a true standards design principles for emerging technologies e.g., mobile devices does not exist, and others (Day et al, 2017). emphasized the needs for participatory design, as there are "many stakeholders with different point of view and interest".…”

How do participants collaborate during an online hackathon? An empirical, quantitative study of communication traces

“…Team members often have diverse backgrounds and interests (DePasse et al, 2014; and they might or might not be familiar with each other before an event (Pe-Than et al, 2022). Teams often remain stable for the duration of an event, but there might be fluctuation in that individuals can leave or join a team while a hackathon is ongoing (Day et al, 2017). Apart from individuals potentially participating in multiple teams, teams are independent of one another, and every team organizes the way they collaborate themselves (Jones et al, 2015;Trainer et al, 2016).…”

Implementing the Co-Immune Open Innovation Program to Address Vaccination Hesitancy and Access to Vaccines: Retrospective Study

“…In response to such criticisms, there are increasing efforts, such as the “Make the Breast Pump not Suck” hackathon and “Trans*H4CK,” to improve hackathon methodology by working directly with affected communities [ 41 ]. Several initiatives, such as a Massachusetts Institute of Technology collaborative design studio, provide insights into hackathon methods [ 42 ] to facilitate better hackathons [ 43 , 44 ]. More recently, multiple entities have engaged in organizing hackathons to address the COVID-19 crisis [ 45 , 46 ].…”