Students studying a range of Computing, Digital and Data courses at TU Dublin have spent two days brainstorming technological solutions affecting patient well-being during the third annual health hackathon in association with Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) and supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Taking place on the University’s Tallaght Campus, the students were split into teams and asked to develop a tech-based solution for five challenges set by TUH clinicians in just two intense, pressure-filled days. Senior Cloud Solutions Architects from AWS also provided expertise and guidance, ensuring each group developed ideas that were achievable from a technical perspective.
Digital tools to monitor patients at risk of falling in the home and a real-time translation application for healthcare workers were among the issues that students were asked to examine, with all groups given one-on-one time with a clinician, where they could ask more detailed questions to develop a deeper understanding of the brief. Following the briefings, there were a series of presentations from TUH and Amazon Web Services on Ethics, Data, Cyber Security and GDPR, all of which were very important elements when developing a technological solution to the challenges set.
The winners of the 2023 Healthcare Hackathon were:
Best Future Solution: In such a short time the team came up with an impressive roadmap for solving ongoing challenge healthcare environment to address real time translation. Team members included Jason Fung; Maksymilian Witalec; Andrei Ciobirca and Gus Shaal.
Best Use of Technology: The team demonstrated the best prototype of the event tackling the tracking of patient, staff and equipment. Team members included Grzegorz Maniak and Adrian Donnelly.
Most Innovative Solution: The team went to great lengths for inclusion in their innovative solution for the weight detector challenge for patients. Members of the team included Georgi Ivanov; Abdullahi Abubakar Kawu and Thomas Cook.
Best Patient Benefit: This team considered not only gathering weight of patients but the other patient data sources that could be used and how they could be integrated in the Hospital systems to the benefit of patient healthcare. Members of the team include Leah Gilmore; Marco Nocerino and Aaron Farrelly.
Overall Hackathon Winner: A comprehensively well-thought-out solution for the track and chase challenge, considering all of the ethical, data collection and legal considerations and costs. With further development this is a solution with the greatest potential for deployment in a hospital setting. Members of the team included Marta de la Cuadra Lozano; Cloë van Geest; Wan Yit Yong and Valentina Duque Leiva.
Following the announcement of the 2023 Hackathon winners, David Wall, Chief Information Officer at TUH said: “Every service or industry has a unique set of challenges, healthcare is no exception. Given the vulnerability of patients and the importance of independent living, relieving pressures on a busy service there has never been a greater need for creativity and development in the delivery and management of care. The Hackathon is such an energising event for everyone involved. It is so refreshing to see the different approaches students take to the challenges set and I hope through their participation gives them a greater insight into healthcare, and it’s potential as an area for them to work in, in the future.”
Joanne Reynolds, Community Engagement Manager AWS, said: “We are thrilled to see another successful Healthcare hackathon take place here at the TU Dublin Tallaght campus. At Amazon, one of our Leadership Principles is to “invent and simplify”- and the students at this Hackathon were doing just that all weekend. I am very excited to see where some of the ideas from this Hackathon will go. The students should be proud of the fact that their ideas will benefit patients and the wider hospital community.”
Commenting on the 2023 Healthcare Hackathon, Seán McHugh, Head of Digital Transformation in the School of Enterprise Computing and Digital Transformation at TU Dublin, said, “Events such as our Healthcare Hackathon are central to our educational ethos at TU Dublin as they provide our students from different academic disciplines the opportunity to work together and put their learning into practice to solve real-world challenges facing TUH patients and the clinicians that care for them. With their fresh innovation mindsets, our students can collaborate to create digital transformation and “tech for good” solutions for real-world impact on current healthcare challenges. Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of our partners – Tallaght University Hospital and AWS – who sponsor the event and devote so much time and effort to setting stimulating challenges and providing technical and clinical insight that inspires our students to develop tech solutions with the potential to improve the lives of so many!”
