Skip to contents
In This Issue:
Twiage co-founder YiDing Yu (center) and HermesIQ co-creator Akansh Murthy (far right) with fellow Hackathon participant and winner Viqar Hussain
BWH iHub's first-ever Hackathon, held last September, brought together innovative minds from a variety of disciplines. The event gave more than 100 clinicians, scientists, programmers and others a chance to pitch projects for prizes to ultimately help improve health care delivery.
This year, two winning Hackathon teams have been backed by major incubators. Twiage was selected as one of Blueprint Health's health IT startups, and HermesIQ has been accepted into Techstars' newest class to help fund and develop its ideas.
Both teams' original concepts mirror what their applications are doing today. Team members took part in the Hackathon for fun but also for the chance to run with their ideas and see if they would work.
"In order to create a well-operating team, you need to establish a team culture," said Akansh Murthy, co-creator of HermesIQ. HermesIQ seeks to convert patient documents saved as images into text formats so they can be altered and updated in real-time and on the go. "Our time at the Hackathon was a fun and informative opportunity."
YiDing Yu, MD, a resident in BWH's Department of Medicine, is a co-founder of Twiage, a mobile application created to deliver more accurate emergency information between ambulance drivers and hospitals. Twiage seeks to eliminate the process of going through radio dispatch and relay patient information directly to computers at receiving hospitals, for faster, more effective communication and patient care.
The real challenge with these projects comes after teams are recognized for their ideas and they are ready to take it to the next level, says Yu. "It's a pipedream at first. You have this great idea, but you always have to learn more and keep developing and improving it," she said.
Yu said another challenge is showing how your product is going to improve a hospital's bottom line or provide a solution to an existing problem. Twiage seeks to reduce hospitals' expenses of paying third party vendors. Future pilots hope to produce data that prove its worth.
One challenge HermesIQ has experienced is finding the time and energy to develop its product. Members of the original team are still students, or have full-time jobs, and have been unable to focus completely on product development.
"You form teams based on who will work well together, and a certain energy surrounds the event," said Murthy. That energy and cohesion can be difficult to maintain post-Hackathon, he says.
Twiage and HermesIQ are both in development. They will launch pilots that they hope will produce data and land their first customers. Along the way, they have learned valuable lessons when it comes to taking advice from mentors and investors.
"Many people will want to pull your ideas and designs different ways to fit their needs," said Yu. "You have to stick to your ideas and incorporate other ideas without changing your original model."
Learn more about iHub at disruptingmedicine.org. Interested in exploring opportunities for innovation? Email iHub@partners.org.