MIT Hacking Medicine’s Grand Hack
Pictured are members of Octila Health.
MIT Hacking Medicine’s Grand Hack is one of the largest health hackathons in the world, gathering hundreds of innovators to develop solutions over the span of weekend. This year’s event was held April 20-23, 2023 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Thirty-five out of 42 total teams competed in the Patient Safety track, sponsored by the Patient Safety Technology Challenge funded by the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative.
Octila Health, a home tracking service for mental health care, won the $1,500 first place prize.
The Octila Health team included: Obinna Anosike, MD, Audra Butler, Tejas Khandelwal, Ciaran Brayboy, and Isabel Abonitalla. The team brought their interdisciplinarity perspectives together to create a solution for mental health patients who do not feel adequately equipped to thrive after discharge.
Octila Health is an application for recently discharged patients to maintain their mental health.
Tejas Khandelwal explained Octila Health was created to provide post inpatient discharge support for patients.
“We focused on mental health patients as there is a specific need of post discharge support to such patients to avoid suicide risk,” Khandelwal said.
It will support users through decentralized monitoring by using conversational chatbots; ensuring evidence-based psychiatric care by employing topographical data analysis; and coordinating care information between patients and providers. The Octila Health app will be capable of tracking vitals, notifying care teams, offering medication and disease education, and providing day-to-day monitoring with the aim of preventing gaps in patient care before they occur and therefore reduce patient harm.
Team member Audra Butler, a Doctor of Pharmacy student, shared that in her professional and personal life she had seen lapses in patient safety.
“Some of these issues were near-misses, and, unfortunately, some of these issues resulted in severe consequences. This made me feel compelled to hold myself, and others, responsible to do our best to ensure patient safety and serve them the best we can,” Butler said.
NexxStep Health, a mobile-based personalized patient action plan application, was awarded the $1,000 second place prize. The team members include Ashley Mak, PT; Chichi Chang, MS; William Laolagi; Nikita Jain; Amum Makani, MD; and Eric Swidler, MPS.
Team member Ashley Mak said, “I noticed the significant inefficiencies in healthcare. It takes a lot of time and resources to get things done. Why can't things move faster?”
This question led the team to develop NexxStep Health, which will increase interoperability through electronic health record integration and improve outcomes through personalized healthcare. This will be accomplished through unifying care from multiple providers into one patient portal. In addition, pre-populated action plans from diagnosis codes will minimize staff disruption and allow for providers to spend more quality time with patients.
Judges for the Patient Safety Technology prize were Susan Haas, MD, Ariadne Labs’ core faculty member in Safe Surgery Safe Systems program; Karen Boylan, RN, Baxter’s manager in global monitoring; and Jack Rowe, MD, Agilon Health’s senior medical director.
The judges shared how they learned from the mentors and were inspired by the ideas the competitors generated.