An Innovation Challenge to Stimulate Student Interest in Geriatric Health Technologies

Canada’s aging population has created significant challenges in geriatric health care, increasing the demand for innovative technological solutions. This paper describes the design and implementation of a weekend-long, interdisciplinary hackathon designed to stimulate student interest in creating technology-based solutions for geriatric health care. Students were presented with the problem of detecting and preventing hospital-induced delirium and provided opportunities to speak with stakeholders from a local hospital throughout the event. In total, 62 students attended the event, 51 from engineering or tech-related programs and 11 from health. Five of the 13 teams of 4-5 students included at least one health student. Of the five problem spaces identified by the activity designers, the majority of groups focussed on patient risk factor monitoring. Overall, the event was judged as a success. Students built functional solutions guided by pre-prepared resources and interactions with key stakeholders including geriatric doctors and volunteers from the hospital elder life program. Planning is underway for the next iteration of the challenge.