Teen tech awards
Team members of Pharma-Bot accepting their award.
The TeenTech Awards were held in London, UK on June 30th. The Patient Safety Technology Challenge, funded by the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI), sponsored the Patient Safety Tech category. To launch the new category, TeenTech ran a live virtual event in December 2022 for teachers and students to explain the challenge, with 250 students and teachers watching the session which raised visibility of patient safety technology possibilities.
Additionally, two in-person Innovation Hacks took place in Reading and Liverpool. The first competition, Innovation Hack, was hosted at Microsoft HQ and the second was hosted at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. These events brought technical and clinical expertise to the students to help provide them with background on patient safety and tech. Students attending these events were provided ongoing access to mentor support and feedback as they developed their TeenTech Awards projects focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning, virtual reality, augmented reality, data science, internet of things, sensors, robotics, and more.
TeenTech organizer Maggie Philbin said adding the Patient Safety category “certainly raised awareness of this very serious global issue. Some schools chose to run our Innovation Hacks with entire year groups, and we know more are now intending to embed the activity into their curriculum which is very exciting.”
Additionally, Philbin shared that she “loved reading the projects, meeting the students and hearing just how committed they are to making the future of health safer and fairer for everyone. Thank you, Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative for everything you have done to inspire and challenge so many young people in the UK.”
Over 50 projects were submitted from across the UK in the first round in the Patient Safety Category and judged at the end of March. Nine of those projects were selected to attend the showcase in London on June 30th.
The winner of the age group 11-16 was the Pharma-Bot, which included Engineering UTC Northern Lincolnshire students Kellie, Sophia, and Ellie. Pharma-Bot is pill-checker harnessing AI to reduce medication errors and using hydraulic power to increase the robot’s energy efficiency. Additionally, the bot’s screen would display facial queues which could ease communication and build trust. The team is aware of other similar available products but believes Pharma-Bot could bring new simplicity to the market.
Pharma-Bot team member and year 9 student Sophia shared, "We were already interested in the category patient safety as health science students, but being able to apply that into a real- life circumstance with an innovation such as the Pharma-Bot was an incredible opportunity we were delighted to be a part of.” Additionally, Pharma-Bot team member and year 9 student, Kellie shared, "I feel so inspired by this great opportunity. Designing a product like the Pharma-Bot has opened my eyes to the great future in health care. We now understand the vast issues faced with patient safety and believe that all young people can make a difference."
The 17-19 age group winner was DemenSure. Sacred Heart Catholic Academy students Lois and Ruby presented the ideafor an implant for dementia patients that can monitor to avoid under or over medication as well as adverse drug-to-drug interactions. The device also monitors if the user has left a designated area or has fallen. B The implant can also track if potentially harmful substances have entered the body. The team explains the benefit of the implant over other devices is it can serve as a consistent monitor for dementia patients without risk of accidental removal. The implant would be connected to a secure app with only approved users having access to the data.
In the team’s own words, “DemenSure is an implant that is simultaneously connected to the DemenSure app which will track kinetic movements, to see if they have fallen, assess medication intake, detect if there are any harmful substances such as alcohol and track when they leave the house. This should ultimately help keep the patient safe and reduce the pressure on family members and the National Health Service."
A DemenSure team member shared, "Teen Tech gave us the opportunity to look at a real-world problem and try to solve it by the process of innovation. Dementia is a progressive condition and more and more of the population are likely to have it in the coming years. Our idea, DemenSure, originated from my Nan suffering with the disease. DemenSure could have helped.”
A judge recruited by PRHI, Andrew Murphy-Pittock, Head of Investigation Education at the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch said, “The young people absolutely blew me away with their ideas, it was truly inspirational. Both the winners had transformative ideas.”