Nurse Hackathons: Reshaping the Future of the Nursing Profession

BY NICOLAS GENNARO SCIASCI, MS

Nurse/Innovator/ Disrupter Rebecca Love has said that nurses are the truest of innovators, which would certainly explain their innate ability to solve healthcare’s most critical challenges. From care delivery to workforce issues plaguing the profession, nurse hackathons are a dynamic way to source solutions by bringing together a diverse group of problem solvers and empowering them to improve health, healthcare, and the health workforce, regardless of geographical location. But how did they get started?

It started with an idea back in early 2019, when a group of nurses from the Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs, and Leaders (SONSIEL) recognized a need for nurses to be recognized as innovators and receive the support and motivation deserved to advance the profession and revolutionize the healthcare arena. As the leading nursing innovation and entrepreneurship organization, they set off to create, build, and scale nurse hackathons globally designed to showcase nurses’ importance and impact. Shortly after, SONSIEL joined forces with Johnson & Johnson to launch their November 2019 Nurse Hackathon set to change the future of human health in only fifty-six hours.

Nurses, healthcare professionals, technologists, and other experts from a wide range of expertise joined forces to develop tangible solutions to address care delivery challenges. The level of energy, excitement, and collaboration generated during the weekend overwhelmingly contributed to its success but was, unfortunately, short-lived. As history would tell us, the world came to a screeching halt as the Sars-Cov-2 novel coronavirus infiltrated every inch of our globe. Nurses, healthcare professionals, and frontline workers were thus working around the clock to help save the lives of thousands of patients infected with the virus. As a result, SONSIEL and Johnson & Johnson quickly partnered with Microsoft and dev up to establish the first NurseHack4Health: COVID19 Virtual Hackathon, presented during National Nurses Month in May 2020 and the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, amidst the intensity of the COVID-19 health crisis. Hundreds of nurses and experts from diverse backgrounds gathered virtually to find solutions to address the multitude of challenges facing frontline workers during the pandemic. From digital telehealth tools to platforms that host recorded messages from a loved one for nurses to play for patients on-demand, the momentum continued to help bring these solutions to life through access to engineering tools, mentorship and coaching opportunities, and more.

During the following months, a multitude of health challenges emerged as the pandemic intensified. The organizers, SONSIEL, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, and dev up set a date for a November 2020 and subsequently, a May 2021 NurseHack4Health, to find ways to leverage technology to improve access to reliable, trusted education and communication amid a pandemic to improve access to care. History was made during

these two intense and thrilling weekends as hacker teams developed viable innovative solutions that were quickly deployable and aligned with the hackathon’s theme and tracks. Solutions included a universal method for reporting health-related misinformation, an app that could turn vaccine information into accurate information in real-time, and a gamified mental health platform geared towards adolescents. These solutions are what the NurseHack4Health and nurse hackathons are set out to achieve. It isn’t simply a hackathon- it’s a weekend of harvesting nurses’ innovative spirits through collaboration and an eagerness to solve the critical challenges facing the nursing workforce, healthcare, and care delivery.

On November 5 -7, 2021, NurseHack4Health: Building a Sustainable Nursing Workforce of the Future was the fourth in a series of hackathons made possible through a unique collaboration by SONSIEL, Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft. To date, more than 3,000 nurses from the United States and around the globe have participated. The November hackathon’s theme was the first to directly address a critical challenge facing the nursing profession: retention and recruitment. Accounting for fifty percent of the global health workforce, we need your help inventing new models to attract and retain our nurses.

Whether you are joining for the first time or are a seasoned hacker coming to the table with an idea and a team, NurseHack4Health is a global platform for any nurse, nursing student, health worker, developer, and other experts with an idea, insight, and desire to collaborate and invent. You may be asking, but how does it work? It’s simple. As part of the event, participants create their own teams or join other teams to be mentored by nursing leaders, entrepreneurs, and developers. By the end of the weekend, teams will have developed minimally viable products (MVPs) to be rapidly applied in healthcare settings. A panel of judges with expertise in innovation, technology, and business will evaluate teams’ pitches for their impact on human health, innovativeness, completeness, marketentry speed, and scalability. All final MVP solutions will be open-source intellectual property. The code will be uploaded to the GitHub software development platform so that hospitals, health systems, and community-based organizations can easily access and deploy the solutions.

Ready to become the ultimate white hat hacker? Ponder your pain points, and later this winter, check https:// nursehack4health.org/ and SONSIEL’s https://sonsiel.org/ news-about-hackathons for details on the next event.

Nervous about your technical skills? Not to worry! NurseHack4Health offers multiple training sessions during the weeks leading up to the event to provide you the skills necessary to succeed. And remember, it all starts with an idea, and only together can we reshape the future of the nursing profession.

Nicholas (Nico) Gennaro Sciasci, MS, is a contributor to SONSIEL- Society of Nurse Scientists Innovators Entrepreneurs and Leaders and subject matter expert on nurse mobility and migration, and nursing workforce challenges.