The presentations at the end of a long weekend by all the teams completely bowled me over. The level of sophistication in presentation, design and working prototypes was quite amazing, as was the energy and enthusiasm in delivery. What seems so unfair is that each team only gets four minutes to pitch and two minutes to answer questions when they’ve sweated blood over their ideas and working models for so long. But that’s the nature of the hackathon and the competitive spirit was driving everyone to display the very best of themselves and their work. What was clear was that there were no ‘bad’ or unworkable ideas. Speaking to one of the judges after, it was obvious that coming to a decision had been extremely difficult given the quality of the outputs.
With Score my Sutures, Echo and Geyedlines coming 1st, 2nd and 3rd and the RCNi prize going to iNurse, I think that we certainly ended with prototype ideas that are of serious value and potential.
So, the prizes are won but this isn’t the end of the road. On Tuesday 10 November, we have our Showcase Event at the National Science Museum in London where teams will again present their ideas. There will be further judging and review of many of the work presented by teams over the weekend.
Health Education England intends to work in partnership with various mentor sites (Trusts/Hospitals) in order to see if the ideas created at TELHack really do have legs.
We hope that many, if not all, participants keep in touch with us, keep thinking about and even working on their incredible ideas to improve and enhance healthcare education and continue to look out for further events of this kind.
With the quality of people that TELHack was able to bring together, there is no doubt in my mind that this creative interface has a real future.