The magic of hackathons

Hackathons from the inside: A conversation with Leo Exter and Tom Braekeleirs

Discover Why Hackathons Are Essential for Digital and cultural Transformation in the Healthcare ecosystem

This article is based on a fascinating Nextt.Health podcast episode hosted by Tom Braekeleirs, who recently interviewed Leo Exter, founder, advocate, and driving force behind Hack Belgium Labs.

Tom Braekeleirs has also been a big supporter of hackathons for years, and so this chat is, how could it be otherwise, about hackathons. And for those who don’t know what this exactly means, no problem, Tom and Leo will explain it in detail. And no, it has nothing to do with bad intentions or breaking into computers. During the chat, Tom and Leo delved into the world of hackathons, exploring their transformative power and the impact these events have on society.

⚡Join us as we unpack the insights from this engaging conversation and learn more about the magic behind hackathons.

THE WHY: LOOKING AT THE BIGGER PICTURE

Despite substantial government investments in Belgium to digitalize healthcare, the digital transformation remains incomplete. Significant gaps persist in the use of digital technology, hindering the vision of a healthier future. Despite the efforts and resources, digital tech in healthcare is not delivering as promised. There’s a large discrepancy between the potential of technology developed by innovators and the reality faced by healthcare practitioners, hospitals, patients, pharma, insurers, and other stakeholders.

The gap arises from both “hard” and “soft” reasons:

Hard reasons:

These include the regulatory and financial context of Belgian healthcare, which are beyond the control of any individual member of the healthcare ecosystem.

Soft reasons:

These are factors we and other members of the healthcare ecosystem can address:

• Cultural inertia among key members of the ecosystem, such as GPs, specialists, and hospital administrations, as well as technologists, who often do not fully consider the needs and context of others in the ecosystem.
• Limited understanding of the potential of technology among non-technical members of the ecosystem.
• Outdated business models that do not align with evolving patient needs and the possibilities offered by new technology.

The main purpose of hack healthcare hackathon is to Put the full potential of digital health at the service of the entire healthcare ecosystem.

The solution: Hackathons as catalysts for change

Hackathons offer a unique and powerful solution to these problems and creates a unique environment that facilitates these essential conversations and collaborations.

Here’s why they are essential for addressing the structural needs in the healthcare ecosystem:

1. Collaboration and cross-pollination: Hackathons bring together diverse stakeholders, including technologists, healthcare practitioners, patients, and business leaders. This collaboration fosters mutual understanding and bridges the cultural and knowledge gaps that exist within the ecosystem.
2. Innovation and problem-solving: Hackathons create an environment where innovative solutions can be rapidly developed and tested. The focused, high-energy format of a hackathon encourages creative problem-solving and the generation of out-of-the-box ideas that might not emerge in traditional settings.
3. Immediate implementation: Unlike lengthy policy changes, the solutions developed in hackathons can often be implemented immediately or serve as prototypes for further development. This agility is crucial in keeping pace with rapidly evolving technology and patient needs.
4. Empowerment and engagement: Hackathons empower participants by giving them hands-on experience with new ideas and methodologies. This practical exposure enhances their understanding and capability to integrate digital solutions into their work.
5. Business model innovation: By involving diverse participants, hackathons can also address the outdated business models prevalent in the healthcare ecosystem. They provide a platform for experimenting with new business models that better align with today’s technological possibilities and patient expectations.

Purposeful co-creation during hackathons has proven to be a highly effective tool for both education and culture change.

🔮The Magic of Hackathons

Hackathons are magical because they produce unexpectedly powerful results by disrupting conventional ways of working.

In most organizations, there is an established way of doing things. Regardless of one’s background, everyone becomes acculturated to this specific method. This pattern starts early, as schooling is conducted similarly across many countries. Likewise, workplace structures are remarkably consistent worldwide.

During a hackathon, however, this routine is completely altered. For two days, participants engage in activities in a completely different manner alongside new and diverse individuals. The absence of expectations and minimal instruction on how to proceed creates a unique environment that fosters creativity and innovation.

Hackathons challenge participants to step outside their comfort zones and collaborate in novel ways, leading to the creation of innovative solutions and the generation of fresh ideas. This break from the norm is what makes hackathons so magical and effective.

So you are all of a sudden working without the usual constraints and limits, and your inner child, your inner creator, can come out and play.

This produces the “wow” feeling that people walk away with from a well-organized hackathon. Because there’s a lot of people going through this “wow” moment and unleashing their own inner creative child, the results are usually far above and beyond what you would expect out of two days of work.

Part of the hackathon experience includes having a deadline. At the end of the two-day event, participants must present something tangible. This deadline drives a focused approach, eliminating non-essential tasks and enabling significant progress within a short timeframe.

The hackathon also offers a liberating experience. Often, work routines are shaped by tradition, external requests, or simply inertia. During the event, however, these factors become irrelevant. Participants are freed from these constraints, allowing them to concentrate fully on innovation and creativity for those two days.

So that’s why it’s a combination of these few things that makes it a magical process, which tends to sometimes produce magical results. The more you program it, the more you plan it, the better. 

Hack Healthcare

The hackathon for healthcare innovators

Hack Healthcare, simply put, is a two-day event where innovation doers from around the healthcare industry and healthcare ecosystem come together to solve complicated problems. “Together” is a keyword here. It’s not just a two-day event; there is a long preparatory process for that. But the essence of it is that over the course of two days, we bring people together to really focus and go deep on very complicated problems. We build groups of people that are keen to work on these problems, and then as groups, as teams, solve these problems or at least find the blueprint for solving these problems, all in just two days. 

🙋who can take part?🙋‍♂️

An important distinction to bring upfront about Hack Healthcare: a lot of hackathons focus on hardware or software design, solving a concrete technical problem with concrete technical needs, be that software or hardware.

With Hack Healthcare, we work more with concepts. We work with things like business models and service models. For that, a participant does not have to be a technical person. That means anybody in healthcare who wants to innovate and make a difference is, first of all, eligible to take part, and second, qualified to take part. So a nurse, a lawyer, a GP, a specialist, a pharma executive, a marketing person from any field of marketing (and God knows there are many), developers, data scientists, entrepreneurs (definitely entrepreneurs), hospital staff, and innovation people of all kinds—everybody is welcome.

We’ve seen that the richness of the event lies in this huge diversity of participants. It’s having this grounded-in-reality perspective of a nurse who deals with patients day in and day out, combined with a designer’s vision of how things can be done better, combined with an entrepreneur’s understanding of how to make things sustainable from a business perspective. That’s the beauty of it, and that’s the uniqueness of what we’re doing. There are very few events that bring together such a diverse audience into one place to focus on working on the same problems.

I think a hackathon is an amazing thing to experience for anybody because it takes you so much. It shows you how you could be working in a very different way. How ambitious you could be, how creative you could be. I’d love for everybody to experience a hackathon as a participant at least once in their life. I know quite a few people who have come back time and time again because it’s such a wonderful, interesting experience.

🎯Big Themes of Hack Healthcare

Each edition of Hack Healthcare focuses on four major themes identified in collaboration with the community.

Event partners present specific challenges for participants to address during the event, and these challenges are refined and validated by the community. This collaborative approach ensures that the hackathon targets pertinent and significant issues within the healthcare ecosystem, fostering innovative solutions and actionable outcomes.

The 4 big themes are:

• Screening and Prevention. It’s a very broad theme, encompassing anything from screening for various cancers to vaccination to promoting healthy lifestyles. There’s a lot of interest in it.
• Enhancing Patient Experience. These themes are intentionally very broad, encompassing everything that contributes to enabling patients to do more and to have more control over their own healthcare processes. This includes helping them acquire the knowledge they need and take control over their patient journey. It can involve anything from finding new ways to explain diagnoses more effectively to guiding them towards full health.
• Secondary use of healthcare data and real-world evidence. This addresses interests across the healthcare ecosystem, particularly driven by research and pharmaceuticals. The focus is on enhancing their effectiveness and ensuring they have the necessary knowledge to achieve their goals.
• Improving the Ecosystem Collaboration and the value of data flows, primarily addressing one of the fundamental challenges in the healthcare ecosystem: the lack of data flow between different parts of the ecosystem. This primarily involves hospitals and general practitioners, but also includes any other parties needing to access and share data, including patients. In this context, value doesn’t necessarily mean monetary value; it’s about the human value of having access to your own data and being in control of your patient journey.

The themes are very broad and interconnected, and can be addressed using existing technologies and business models. They don’t require advanced technological research; solutions can often be found using off-the-shelf technologies and by fostering dialogue among stakeholders.

That’s why these themes continue to emerge as critical in healthcare year after year.

🎧 HealthNerd Podcast | Listen now the full episode!

ABOUT TOM BRAEKELEIRS

Tom Braekeleirs is a former corporate executive who became an entrepreneur and an innovation leader in digital health. He has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry, working for companies like EDS-AT Kearney, Navision and Microsoft. In 2015, he switched careers to lead the BlueHealth Innovation Center, a not-for-profit that supports digitalization in healthcare and guides health-tech startups. Mid 2023, this organization became part of imec, after which Tom founded Nexxtt.Health.

He is an advisor, podcaster, speaker, lecturer and columnist on topics such as the future of health, digital technology and entrepreneurship. He has worked with leadership teams around the globe from organizations ranging from a few to a few thousand employees. In 2022, he received the PRoF Award for Innovation for his contribution to advancing digital innovation in healthcare.

His personal motto is: “Change the world, or go home!”