(P12) Teaching Principles of Medical Innovation and Entrepreneurship Through Hackathons: Case Study and Qualitative Analysis

Objectives: Complex healthcare problems require innovative solutions, yet emergency physicians do not often receive any experience or training in healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship. In order to meet this need, we developed the first emergency medicine hackathon, HackED.

Background: Hackathons are competitions where small groups craft creative solutions to difficult problems over a short time period. Our goal was to increase emergency physician engagement and offer an opportunity to work with tech industry leaders to solve complex problems affecting the current healthcare landscape. The three cases the groups addressed were:
• Wearable health data: how can we incorporate data from patients’ wearables into their emergency care?
• Hospital at Home: how can EM physicians improve the care of patients receiving home-based care?
• Health Care Surveillance: Can we identify critical and evolving patterns of disease to improve patient care?

Methods: To design HackED, we drew on the experiences of previous hackathons outside of healthcare and coordinated efforts with leaders from the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign. We developed the structure of the event, the challenge prompts, a recruitment plan of participants, and a general schedule for the competition. We advertised the event through registration for the conference as well as on the ACEP website. Participants completed an online registration form and we matched teams with coaches with previous experience in healthcare innovation or biodesign. To further equip participants with the skills necessary to address their designated problems, we recruited a diverse group of speakers to give short presentations on healthcare innovation topics over the course of the hackathon. We planned a pitch competition for the final day of the event and recruited a group of judges in leadership positions in EM and healthcare innovation. The winning team was provided with free consultation with the Stanford Emergency Medicine Partnership Program (STEPP), an academic-startup pilot program focused on research and product validation. To assess our innovation, we completed direct observation in the field as well as had participants complete a qualitative questionnaire.

Results: This event took place during the 2022 ACEP Scientific Assembly (Oct 1-3) in San Francisco, CA. 37 physician registrants were divided into 3 teams. Participants included physicians, engineers, entrepreneurs, and user experience designers.

Each team developed an innovative solution: The wearable healthcare data team developed “Happiness Rx”, a lifestyle tracking application designed to combat physician burnout. The Hospital at Home team developed “Dorothy.ai”, an app that helped screen patients for safety of discharge and coordinated expected resources needed at home. The Surveillance team developed “ForecastER”, a subscription-based service for hospitals to get real-time maps of disease patterns in order to help emergency departments and hospitals prepare their staff and resources for potential patient surges.

The majority of participants were extremely satisfied with the experience and would recommend it to others. Qualitative analysis of our observations and survey data revealed several perceived benefits including increased experience with interdisciplinary collaboration, discovery of design thinking methods and their application, and a clearer understanding of the diversity of stakeholders that must be considered during implementation. The event had a perceived effect on how participants would approach problems in the future, and inspired participants to become more involved in healthcare innovation in the future.

Conclusions: Despite its computing and coding origins, hackathons have become a staple across multiple fields as a way to inspire innovative minds to creatively develop solutions to complex problems in a time-efficient manner. Here we described our experience with HackED, a healthcare innovation hackathon for emergency physicians. This experience offered valuable training for all involved, inspired many to become more involved in healthcare innovation, and led to several innovative solutions for challenges facing emergency medicine and hospitals as a whole.

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Funding (Optional): The authors would like to thank the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), Stanford’s Department of Emergency Medicine, and Stanford’s Byers Center for Biodesign for supporting the event.