MIT Hacking Medicine events are known in the Boston area as fertile networking grounds where paradigm changing healthcare innovations, and multi-million dollar ideas, have taken root. It was here that Elliot Cohen and TJ Parker conceived of PillPack, which raised $50 million dollars last June, and where the team behind Arsenal Health, recently acquired by Athenahealth, got their start.
This year at the 2016 Grand Hack, a new group of highly caffeinated hopefuls assembled with the aim of leveraging technology to address major problems in healthcare. On Saturday morning, physicians, UX designers, software engineers and business students split into teams of up to 6 participants and worked throughout the weekend to identify problems and develop technology enabled solutions that fell into three tracks: chronic conditions, healthcare at home, connected health.
“Last year, $7 Billion went into digital health startups from the private sector,” said Hacking Medicine faculty advisor Zen Chu. “Everybody sees that technology is one of the only ways to scale medicine and accomplish the triple aim of healthcare—increase access, increase the quality and consistency of care, and lower costs.”
