HopHacks
Judges Ralph Johnson (far left) and Michael McShea (far right), along with 1st prize winning team members from SurgiScan (left to right): Chinmay Agrawal, Ronith Anchan, and Shaurya Kumar. (Photo provided by Johns Hopkins University)
HopHacks, the 36-hour annual Hackathon hosted on September 13-15 by Johns Hopkins University, brought together over 250 engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs to explore new software or hardware ideas. Funding from the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative supported The Patient Safety Technology Challenge in sponsoring the $500 and $300 cash prizes for the top two innovations in patient safety. The prizes were judged by Ralph Johnson, MS, CPHQ, FHIMSS and Michael McShea, MS, MBA. Johnson, who is the Vice President of Informatics and Technology at Leapfrog, also served as a mentor. McShea is the Chief Scientist Lead at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in the Health and Human-Machine System group.
The first-place prize of $500 was awarded to Surgiscan, which uses computer vision technology to detect and track surgical tools during procedures. The SurgiScan team imcludes Shaurya Kumar, Chinmay Agrawal, and Ronith Anchan.
After attending the Patient Safety Track workshop, Chinmay said he was “taken aback” learning about how other industries prioritize safety, and how far behind health care lags in that respect. This was his inspiration for improving surgery through SurgiScan. Chinmay noted that he and his fellow team members are “looking to attend more hackathons and improve our technical abilities.”
The second-place prize of $300 was awarded to MedTap, a solution that uses near-field communication technology to make it easier for medical professionals to access vital information about individuals with critical medical conditions when they are in an emergency. The MedTap team included Ashitha Gowda, Tirth Patel, Eric Chen, and Kshitij Kochhar.
Co-Director Josephine Deng was “thrilled to welcome hackers from a diverse range of universities, including some from outside the U.S., to HopHacks 2024,” adding that she was “incredibly inspired [by the] genuine passion and enthusiasm” demonstrated by the participants in this year’s challenge. She believes “everyone gained something valuable—be it new skills, friendships, or unique experiences.” Additionally, she stressed the importance of hackathons like HopHacks in offering hackers an opportunity to contribute to a growing body of innovative tech-enabled solutions that “have the potential to make a real impact in healthcare.”
