Hack4Health recap: a hackathon for health

On 12 May 2022, the BlueHealth Innovation Center organised the Hack4Health hackathon event in Sint-Truiden, Belgium. The event focused on two key areas of health; caring neighbourhoods, and care tourism. The caring neighbourhoods aspect focused on achieving better communication between caregivers in the community and the main healthcare institutions, thus helping people to stay at home for longer instead of being admitted to hospitals or other care facilities. The care tourism element focused on how to better support people with a mental or physical disability to go on holiday.

Extra Horizon’s Product Owner Christopher Hex participated in the Hack4Health event, and as a part of a 5 person group, they came up with their winning solution: a micro-learning platform through which people can learn, through very easy-to-take courses, about how to understand people better, and how to start conversations with people who may struggle.

Christopher Hex, Product Owner, Extra Horizon:

“Working on the engine that powers digital health solutions, it’s easy to get lost in the technical aspect of healthcare. These events help me to stay curious and focused towards our and our customers’ true end goal: improving people’s lives.”

Although the topics of Hack4Health were quite far from the more technical topics encountered at Extra Horizon, the organization believes it is incredibly important to keep links with the broader health space. Participating in events such as Hack4Health helps keep the focus on the ultimate goal, which is to help patients.

The team looks forward to joining the next Hack4Health event around the topic of telemonitoring, which aligns with Extra Horizon’s core expertise.