The World Health Organisation (WHO) has held their “first-ever Health Hackathon” in Ukraine to find solutions for some of the challenges patients and doctors face in digital healthcare.
Noting that digitalisation is “an essential step forward in strengthening health systems and public health functions”, WHO brought together more than 40 teams of innovators to Lviv in western Ukraine to tackle the challenges.
For 48 hours, students, healthcare workers, IT specialists, marketers and activists worked to develop people-centred digital solutions to contribute to the Ukrainian national healthcare strategy, with the aim of meeting the needs of patients, doctors and unions.
The teams had to demonstrate digital solutions for five health challenges, with support from over 30 experts from the business, health and tech sector.
Several ideas received financial backing, invitations of support from incubators and offers of mentorship as a result of the Hackathon. An example is Scally, an emotional support bot for relatives of cancer patients, with other winning solutions including software that analyses and monitors patient data to send further diagnostics to doctors and an artificial intelligence solution that helps to diagnose symptoms.
Ten teams will move forward with their products, working with business mentors and WHO field experts to advance and finalise them.
Dr Jarno Habicht, WHO Representative in Ukraine, said: “E-health has advanced over the past years, and Ukraine has been developing its IT products in different fields, including health care. We invited participants of the Health Hackathon to contribute by tackling challenges around health promotion, disease prevention, mental health, health workforce support and healthcare management.”
