Shift Alerts wins at Hacking Health Telemedicine hackathon
The Shift Alerts team returned to the annual eHealth conference, this year held at Toronto’s Metro Convention Center. Last year the team attended in Vancouver to participate as mentors for the resident Hacking Health hackathon. The Ontario Telemedicine Network, Canada’s Health Informatics Association, Canada Health Infoway, Canadian Institute for Health Information, teamed up with Hacking Health to issue a design challenge at the 2015 conference to address 3 main areas: patient management, care coordination, and communication. Team Shift Alerts accepted the challenge and built CareKit Health, a solution that turns any room in the house into a smart care monitoring and management system in the home using Estimote Beacon and wearable technologies, which interface with Apple’s HealthKit.
The competition started with 250 registered participants, and narrowed down to 40 teams presenting at the eHealth event. After the 1st elimination round, CareKit Health was up against 9 other projects, all of which presented in front of judges and audience on the eHealth 2015 conference stage. Shift Alerts CIO Leo Godreault delivered a flawless pitch with many great questions and responses from the judges. Microsoft, Gevity, and the Ontario Telemedicine Network were the hackathon’s main sponsors.
CareKit Health took home two awards: The Microsoft Digital Health Award and OTN Most Innovative Solution Runner-Up. The team is currently exhausted, but very happy with the outcome, and extremely proud of the accomplishments. CareKit Health will continue forward as Shift Alerts’ solution for home care agencies and families. The flagship product Shift Alerts Acute Care meant for hospitals and skilled nursing facilities will also provide a bridge to close the gap in transition between hospitals, outpatient clinics, and the community.
By creating a patient centric platform, enabling pairing with both wearables and sensors, and creating a support care circle for the patients, CareKit Health makes it possible to know what’s exactly going on with individuals who receive care in their homes. The contextualized reminders and prompts for the patients also facilitate care/ discharge plan compliance. The interface of the app was designed so that patients are encouraged to participate in managing and learning about their health.
The Shift Alerts team is currently in San Francisco from June 8-12th for the annual Apple Worldwide Developer Conference.
