HackDuke

Patient Safety Track Winner PatientWatch team members Michael Byrant and Kevin Deng on stage.

The Patient Safety Technology Challenge introduced patient safety to the lineup to this year’s HackDuke. HackDuke was held September 8-10 on Duke University’s Durham, North Carolina campus. The Patient Safety Technology Challenge, funded by the Pittsburgh Regional Heath Initiative, established a new patient safety track with a $500 award earmarked for the best tech-enabled patient safety solution.

The winner of the patient safety tech track was Patient Watch, with team members Michael Bryant, Lilly Chivetta, and Kevin Deng – all students of Duke University. Patient Watch is an automatic monitoring and warning system solution to alleviate burden on frontline workers. It monitors patients’ conditions through web cameras and alerts staff to suboptimal conditions.

Team member Lilly Chivetta shared the driving force behind Patient Watch:

“Two summers ago, I was in Uganda as a part of a DukeEngage Program. There, I was… part of a team developing prototypes of low-cost medical devices to potentially be deployed in their hospitals. One of the issues we were unable to tackle while in the country was the concern of patient safety. The patient-to-nurse ratio in Ugandan hospitals is incredibly high, with one nurse taking care of 20 or more patients, and this greatly hinders their patient safety. This, along with the additional challenge put forth in HackDuke, developed our idea for Patient Watch.”

When asked what’s next for the team, Michael Bryant, a Duke junior studying computer science, said,“We are considering the options surrounding advancing our project into a product. We hope to iterate on our idea in the future.”

The patient safety track was judged by University of North Carolina Health academic hospitalist Joseph Thomas, MD and quality improvement and patient safety specialist Luis Torres Torija Arguelles, MD, MBA. Dr. Arguelles presented the award and shared some information about patient safety to raise visibility. Both judges were impressed with the projects created in just 36 hours.