Across all tracks, the range of issues being tackled by the hackathon teams was as staggeringly diverse as anyone with passing familiarity with the U.S. health care (non) system might imagine, ranging from medication adherence, to anonymous STD diagnosis sharing, to early diagnostics for Parkinson’s, to building better communities and coaching for diabetics, to a tool seeking to protect against opioid abuse relapse by monitoring communications with “friends” taggged as “safe” or as on a “watchlist,” to online bill payment, to physical therapy compliance and coaching, to a SaaS tool for traumatic brain injury treatment for veterans.
The ideas presented (developed within the confines of the hackathon) of course were early-stage, and some showed more promise than others. Some seemed to demonstrate a lack of awareness of other tools already out there doing the same or similar things — but I will chalk that up mostly to youthful enthusiasm; frankly, while a handful of ideas hashed out at a hackathon like this may proceed to development as features, products or even companies, the key output of an event like this is energized hackers eager to solve big problems in healthcare. As the organizers said more than once in the lead-up to the announcement of the winners of various categories of prizes, the judges are often wrong, meaning that it is often the teams that do not win recognition at hackathons that go on to develop products and form companies that are successful in the digital health space.
