Twenty-four teams from Finland and beyond were invited to face the challenges of the OuluHealth Hack. They brainstormed in Oulu to find innovations that will shake up the future health care industry.
Health care is undergoing digital transformation, which brings numerous challenges and the need for improvements. To answer these needs OuluHealth and Ultrahack have organized the hackathon weekend at the University of Oulu. The participants were selected from the pool of 66 project applications. The most talented teams of innovators came to Oulu with one goal, to hack the future of health.
The OuluHealth Hack focused on digital transformation in healthcare and aimed at finding new digital solutions that will speed the upcoming health and social services reform. There were three main challenges to solve and a bonus one. The challenges were provided by the hackathon partners:
- Oulu University Hospital (OYS) and InterSystems were looking for innovations to improve the service platforms and customer experience in a hospital environment
- CGI focused on innovating customer journey
- Tieto defined an open challenge for any health tech idea or solution
- Sitra rewarded a solution which puts human into the center
‘It was unbelievable to see how the teams worked day and night to get the challenges solved and how they had fun while doing that. Lots of interesting solutions have appeared this weekend. We are going to continue discussions with at least one of the teams,’ explained Joona Pylkäs, Head of Imaging at Tieto Healthcare.
‘I can say that the OuluHealth Hack met our expectations. It was a very-well organized event that resulted in many great ideas. I was surprised to see how well some teams managed to develop a solution in just a couple of days. The event also proved that we are on the right track while enabling open ecosystems with our technology’ noted Janne Korhonen, Sales Engineer at InterSystems.
‘CGI believes in open interfaces and ecosystems. This event was a good way to reach people who come from “outside” of communities without having welfare ICT as everyday business and seek fresh ideas that people who work in the inner circle maybe wouldn’t notice. The hackathon completes the way CGI wants to create new partnerships,’ stated Juha Sorri, Vice President at CGI.
‘In our track, the participants were from the outside of the healthcare sector and they had good “out of the box” ideas. It was a positive surprise to see how effective the teams were and how quickly they adjusted their plans after guidance from our side,’ concluded Markus Vehmanen, Director, Consulting at Welfare at CGI
Team spirit and passion for innovations
The OuluHealth Hack gathered companies, students, designers, software developers and engineers. Each of the teams had a different background, work experience and represented diverse perspectives. However, they all had one thing in common – the belief that they came up with the ideas that will influence the future of healthcare.
Three of the teams came all the way from Delhi in India to join the CGI track of the hackathon.
‘I believe we have the right skills to develop a future health solution that can be applied not only in Finland. I expected to meet a lot of new people here and to learn from their experience,’ said Shivam Singhai.
The OuluHealth Hack opened on Friday with a networking reception and presentation of the hackathon partners. For the next two days the teams were trying to find the right solutions to the challenges.
Health care of tomorrow
The OuluHealth Hack culminated in a final pitching on Sunday, after which the jury panel selected the best solutions that were generated during the hackathon weekend.
The winners of this year’s OuluHealth Hack are:
Oulu University Hospital (OYS) and InterSystems track
- HealthLane: the solution guides patients through the whole appointment process, enables updating information and answering questions quickly
- XHealth: the idea is to instruct patients step by step during their health care journey
- DocForm: the solution allows patients to fill in a health form in real-time, in a mobile and integrative way
CGI track
- Health Guide: the solution helps to avoid hospital queues, navigate to hospital and get help immediately when it’s required.
- Two teams
-Ayush: the chatbot to make initial diagnosis and appointment with doctors
-Koonat
Tieto track
- Docify: the solution helps to reduce paperwork in healthcare
- Medchat: the translation app for foreign patients
Sitra bonus track
- HealthLane
‘The experience of the hackathon was nice. The place felt good and the event was well-organised. The pitching was quite a difficult thing to do when you have to speak and believe that you are the best,’ said Olli Peura from Docify.
’To tell the truth we were surprised to find out that we had won. We started from almost nothing on Friday and we did a lot of work. We didn’t sleep much so we were quite tired during the pitching but it went great,’ added Jani Ahola and Kalle Moilanen from HealthLane.
There were many different reasons for participating in the hackathon. For the participants, it was an excellent opportunity to gain more visibility, extend the network of contacts and receive some money for further product development, as the prizes were worth 14 500€ in total. It was also great to see that participating partners are continuing discussions with teams for pilot projects and further co-operation.
The event blended visions of the future of health care with open minds and vivid team spirit. The OuluHealth Hack definitely proved the fact that the world can be changed and OuluHealth ecosystem is a perfect place to develop great new solutions. And let’s not forget the awesome atmosphere, which was the coolest thing in this competition!
Click here to view the OuluHealth Hack pictures.
For further information, please contact:
Ms. Hanna Mattila, BusinessOulu hanna.mattila@businessoulu.com tel. +358 40 717 3588
Mr. Miikka Nevasalo, Ultrahack miikka.nevasalo@ultrahack.com tel. +358 40 803 2162
