HackNJIT
HackNJIT’s winning team, Man Overboard, with judges Linda Curley from Rutgers School of Nursing (pictured in vertical stripes) and Joan Gleason Scott from NJHA, far right.
HackNJIT, the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s (NJIT) 24-hour hackathon, was held on campus on November 4-5.
HackNJIT is run by NJIT’s Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) student chapter in conjunction with the Ying Wu College of Computing. The Patient Safety Technology Challenge track, funded by the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative, sponsored the $400 prize for the winning team. The overarching theme of the hackathon was nautical-themed; therefore, hackers were encouraged to weave that into their projects.
Dina Anello, an organizer of HackNJIT shared, "I was shocked that there were 12 projects under the patient safety category. Normally it's impressive to get three to five submissions for a sponsor, so I was blown away by the interest of the students."
Man Overboard, the winning team, focused on a safety system crafted to identify passengers going “overboard,” promptly alerting ship crews in real-time. Employing computer vision and instantaneous communication, their system consistently surveils the ship’s surroundings, promptly notifying the crew upon detecting a potential overboard situation.
The two patient safety judges, Linda Curley from Rutgers School of Nursing and Joan Gleason Scott from the New Jersey Hospital Association, thought this could easily be applied in healthcare settings. For example, adjustments could be made to track patients in nursing homes, a population that can easily go missing, or even in pediatric hospital units to track children moving about the ward.