CatHacks

MediCheck team members Matthew Wallen, Samyak Piya, Aastha Bhatt and judge Karen Curtiss (left to right) at CatHacks. (Photo provided by: CatHacks)

CatHacks, hosted by the University of Kentucky, held its 10th annual hackathon beginning April 12th.

CatHacks is the first national college hackathon in the state of Kentucky. Karen Curtiss served as a “Patient Safety 101” workshop facilitator, mentor, and judge for the event’s patient safety prize.

MediCheck, a system to augment and enhance drug selection safety by providing an additional check, won the prize for the best tech-enabled patient safety solution. Team members included: Matthew Wallen, Samyak Piya, and Aastha Bhatt. Their prize was sponsored by the Patient Safety Technology Challenge, with funding from the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI).

MediCheck team member Matthew Whalen said the Patient Safety track was heavily promoted and incentivized by CatHacks.

“Our project is meant to help nurses double check whether the drug they are administering is the actual drug that they want or not by highlighting drugs that may be valid for this patient using a machine learning model to evaluate the patient’s data,” said Whalen, explaining how their innovation addressed patient safety.

Dave the Passive Medical Assistant received the second-place prize. DAVE is a tool to boost the confidence of both patients and providers in medical offices using an assistive tech-enabled medical tool. DAVE team members included: John Marshall, Blake Vaughn, and Margaret Cunningham.

CatHacks organizer Evan Jones said, “Working with PRHI and everyone involved with the Patient Safety Technology Challenge was nothing but fantastic. They were involved, responsive, and informative for any questions we had, along with being super helpful in the pre-event period. Our hackers really appreciated all of the information they provided and the mentor they sent was fantastic. The category was extremely popular and produced a number of exciting and unique projects. CatHacks X wouldn’t have been the same without them.”

The Patient Safety Technology Challenge was thrilled to sponsor CatHacks and increase the visibility of working on patient safety solutions.