荔枝视频

On a Saturday afternoon at the tail end of the fall term break, a group of medical, computer science and engineering students from across the universities of 荔枝视频 and Alberta were hard at work addressing pain points in the health-care system.

Students gathered to present digital health solutions supported by artificial intelligence (AI) 鈥� the culmination of a three-week exercise known as the Hack4Health Hackathon, hosted by the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Society (AIMS) and supported by the (AMA) and the (CAIELI).

鈥淭he most transformative advancements in health care will come from interdisciplinary collaboration,鈥� says Austin Barr, AIMS co-president and (CSM) medical student. 鈥淲ith Hack4Health, we wanted to give medical, computer science and engineering students a space to connect, learn each other鈥檚 language, and see what interdisciplinary collaboration can look like.鈥�

More than 100 students were placed in cross-faculty teams and worked together over several weeks, developing digital health tools that address challenges such as surgery wait times, staff burnout, patient screening and charting. Teams met with mentors, iterated on prototypes and, finally, pitched to a panel of health and business experts:

• Dr. Jehangir Appoo, MDCM, cardiovascular surgeon and health care venture capital investor
• Dr. Gesche Riabowol n茅e Tallen, MD, PhD, pediatric oncologist and associate professor, CSM; member
• Dr. Matt Rahimi, MBA鈥�04, PhD鈥�13, adjunct assistant professor, ; and instructor and director, Business Development and Experiential Learning Initiative, University of Lethbridge, Dhillon School of Business 

Meet the winning team 

The competition鈥檚 culmination saw more than 18 interdisciplinary teams present their prototypes, with judges selecting one winning team to receive a grant to support further product development:

• Surgery Video Summarizer: a tool that automatically tags and splits surgery videos into sections based on the steps of the operation. The winning team consisted of:
  • Ali Al-Khaz'Aly, BSc'20, CSM
  • Sofia Hospedales Parjan, CSM
  • David Onofeghara,
  • Rikthi Pranadhik Mondal,

鈥淗ack4Health gave us an opportunity to combine our diverse skill sets to build a complete end-to-end solution within a short timeline,鈥� notes the winning team. 鈥淭his grant will help train more powerful video interpretation models that are smarter and more effective at predicting different stages of surgery.鈥�

Other honourable mentions

• SmartPeer: a virtual reality tool that helps neurodivergent children practice real-life situations in a safe, controlled space.
• RespiraTrack: an app that uses AI to detect unusual breathing patterns.
• DocBox: a tool that works with health records to automatically sort and manage clinicians鈥� inboxes.
• MomSafe: a smart prenatal tool that helps first-time parents monitor their pregnancy.

Hack4Health encourages students to think creatively about how technology can improve health-care delivery. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e constantly hearing about digital health and AI in health care, but it鈥檚 hard for medical students to meaningfully engage in those conversations with limited technical backgrounds,鈥� says Michelle Pham, AIMS co-president and CSM medical student. 鈥淭his initiative gives students the opportunity to engage early, giving them a window into what building these tools actually looks like.鈥�

Laying the groundwork for future innovation

With the inaugural Hack4Health wrapped up, AIMS and its partners are already thinking about what comes next. 

鈥淥ur hope is that students came out of Hack4Health not just with a prototype, but with new collaborators and the momentum to keep pursuing interdisciplinary projects,鈥� says Barr. 鈥淚f we can spark even a few long-term partnerships between medicine, engineering, and computer science, that鈥檚 how we鈥檒l see real change in our health system.鈥�

Leeanne Morrow, BA'01, director of CAIELI, agrees. 鈥淚t is the entire purpose of CAIELI to help students work in a transdisciplinary manner to have a big impact and learn from each other to help solve problems. We look forward to working alongside students and supporting more of these events in the future.鈥�