Cleveland Medical Hackathon Announces 2016 Themes

The Cleveland Medical Hackathon (October 22-23, 2016) announced the themes of this year’s event. The themes follow four tracks that guide hackathon participants to create technological solutions to solve challenges. The 2016 themes will be: Access Redesign, Care Redesign, Payment Redesign, and Transformations in Public Health. The 2nd annual Cleveland Medical Hackathon is partnering with the Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit to foster collaboration and align themes between the respective events.
 
The Cleveland Medical Hackathon (#clemedhack) will bring together doctors, nurses, researchers, public health workers along with IT professionals over an intense 24-hour period at the Global Center for Health Innovation on October 22-23, 2016. Hackathon teams will identify challenges, propose solutions, and work on technological solutions that are poised to transform healthcare. Teams will then present their solutions for cash prizes and an opportunity to discuss their findings during the 14th Annual Medical Innovation Summit immediately following the Hackathon.
 
Students and professionals in IT, healthcare, patient advocacy, startup business, government, and more are encouraged to apply to attend the event at www.clevelandmedicalhackathon.com.
 
 “The Medical Innovation Summit brings together panels of experts speaking toward important opportunities and challenges in healthcare,” said James Krouse, director of marketing and communications for hackathon co-founder Nesco Resource, a national recruiting firm. “Presenting these tracks helps extend our event into the conversations taking place at the Summit and beyond.”
 
“The panels that we are presenting at the Innovation Summit will explore some of the key challenges facing healthcare today,” said Will Morris, MD, associate chief information officer, Cleveland Clinic. “Working with the Hackathon will help explore solutions to these challenges with a fresh perspective that should be a valuable part of that conversation.”
 
The Cleveland Medical Hackathon is presented by Nesco Resource. Major sponsors include Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University, and Intel. Other sponsors include Hyland Software, CoverMyMeds, and LiveStories.
 
The event is organized by Nesco Resource, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, MetroHealth, Intel, Case Western Reserve University, HIMSS, BioEnterprise, and FlashStarts.
 
2016 Cleveland Medical Hackathon Tracks
The 2016 Cleveland Medical Hackathon centers on the transformation of healthcare and its related systems. What role can technology play in not only improving our care, but alter fundamentally how we access it and make it affordable? 
Using this basic framework, participants in the Hackathon can come to the event with a basic kernel of an idea, pose a challenge, or present a technology. Teams can form at the event around these ideas and move ahead with creating solutions.
 
Access Redesign
We experience how technology can redefine our interactions with systems every day. From shopping to hailing a cab, technology changed the access game. The theme of this tract is how can we move beyond a waiting room, to a model where the “patient will see you now.”
 
Challenge: How can we leverage technology to increase access levels among individuals or populations? How can these new tools provide access to care in non-traditional venues including community-based care, wellness, and environmental factors?
 
Payment Redesign
The United States GDP healthcare spending continues to grow at an unsustainable rate. Technology, cost transparency, analytics and big data address how we can align the right treatment, to the right person at the right time for the right cost.
Challenge: How can we incentivize better patient outcomes while simultaneously saving money? How can technology manage the cost of care? How can we aligned and incentivize the establishment and maintenance of wellness and health? How can cost and value, change behaviors and health outcomes for individuals and populations?
 
Care Redesign
Individuals are increasingly using technology to manage their health conditions, to track their exercise and food intake, and to engage social support networks. This technology generates data that could be aggregated to understand population-level trends and needs in health and wellness. We are generating reams of data through the use of location-aware mobile devices, social media, and internet-connected appliances or technologies.
 
Challenge: How do we develop technology solutions that understand the critical challenges of care? How can we use data from public and non-public sources to reveal trends in population health, to identify the best opportunities for promoting health and wellness, and to enable people to live long, healthy lives? How do we leverage technology to track behavior and enhance communication between healthcare providers and patients? How do we balance privacy concerns with technology-enabled tracking?
 
Transforming Population Health
Across the Cleveland area’s municipalities, residents have a 17-year difference in life expectancy. Health care only explains about 20% of that difference. Hyperlocal data reveals enormous disparities in health, health care and the social determinants of health.
 
Challenge: How can we use data available at the census tract, municipality, or zip code level to develop or evaluate interventions designed to improve health at the population level or to reduce health disparities? Can we use real time data to predict needs or to enable people to live long, healthy lives?
 
2015 Cleveland Medical Hackathon in Review
The Cleveland Medical Hackathon (#clemedhack) presented by Nesco Resource climaxed Sunday, September 27th with three winners chosen out of 21 competing teams. Doctors, nurses, patient advocates, researchers, scientists, programmers, entrepreneurs, engineers, and developers worked for over 24 hours on projects leveraging technology to solve big challenges in the world of medicine, health and wellness. More than 225 participants joined with mentors from medical, law, tech and public health fields to identify problems, pitch ideas, share expertise, and ultimately form teams to find solutions within a 24-hour time period.