In addition to the event we just co-hosted, healthcare hackathons are happening all over the country. These hackathons bring people with diverse perspectives — clinicians, engineers, designers, software developers, business people, and patients — together in an intense, fun-filled, multi-day event to develop and build solutions that address healthcare challenges. Participants form teams, collaborate, and focus on a specific problem or idea in healthcare to come up with innovative ideas and solutions. Some people participate in these competitions for the thrill and the opportunity to win a cash prize. Others participate because they have meaningful insights to contribute to a problem that is important to them.
If you plan to participate in an upcoming healthcare hackathon, here are some tips:
Research the problem and learn directly from the people who have the issue you are trying to solve. Talk to the end-users, watch how they currently solve the issue and try to experience it yourself.
Establish a hypothesis and begin to test it among key users. Before you start to build any models, discuss your idea with those who will impact the most from your idea.
Identify roles on your team. Assign tasks based on core skills needed to build your idea.
Validate and iterate throughout the process. Because you will need to move quickly during a hackathon event, things will not always work perfectly before you can test them. That is okay. In this situation, you want to pivot and explore throughout the development process.
Maintain constant communication with your team. As a team, maintain the camaraderie of normal communication, irrespective of the tense circumstances. Be it the last-minute change or inability to do a particular task, keep the other team members updated.
Have fun and good luck!