In a 911 emergency, paramedics make life-or-death decisions in seconds. They do this without even knowing the patient's name.
This issue inspired Team My In Case of Emergency (mICE), winners of this year’s
Startup Weekend Health (SWH). Their app accesses a patient's medical history, including vital information like medications and allergies, and is intended for first responders.
The grueling 54-hour hackathon, held last weekend at
VentureF0rth, was largely attended by doctors, nurses and other practitioners. Sponsors included
DreamIt Ventures, Safeguard and
Drexel’s iSchool.
"[Clinicians] are coming up with ideas based on some of the problems they encounter every day," says Arif Virani, a SWH organizer. "It's great to get a bunch of smart people to think about these big, audacious problems and take on a tiny sliver."
mICE team leader David Bendell, a Penn nursing student and U.K. native, worked with six others, including several Penn students with backgrounds in IT or healthcare. Their winning project provides the patient's photo, identity and self-description by scanning a QR-code stored on the patient's phone. Medical records mined from insurance transactions would appear once the responder was verified by the insurance company's call center.
A total of 90 people participated in SWH, providing 36 pitches. There were 20 front-runners and 13 made it to the final demo round. In second place was Jose Morey, a radiologist at Penn, and his team USmedics, who created a platform that enables remote patients -- particularly those outside the United States -- to have test results read by doctors at top hospitals. Finishing third was KnowMe, an app conceptualized by Penn nursing student, Kerry McLaughlin, that helps nursing home staff maintain daily records of residents' moods, symptoms and habits.
Lon Hect, the winner of last year’s SWH, went on to win the
Independence Blue Cross Game Changers Challenge and was awarded $50,000 in seed money. He is currently working on his startup full-time.
Source: Arif Virani, David Bendell, Startup Weekend Health
Writer: Dana Henry